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How to build a circular economy for rare-earth elements

Rare-earth elements that are crucial for clean-energy technologies are jealously fought over. Policies and programmes to encourage recycling and recovery could reduce tensions.
  1. Yong Geng

    1. Yong Geng is a professor of environmental management at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.

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  2. Joseph Sarkis

    1. Joseph Sarkis is a professor of management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, and TEC-LOGd chair at Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France in Valenciennes, France.

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  3. Raimund Bleischwitz

    1. Raimund Bleischwitz is the scientific director of the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Bremen, Germany.

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A hand holds a vial filled with rare earths with blurred electronic waste in the background

Rare-earth elements can be extracted from electronic waste. Credit: Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty

There’s a key chemical connection between many of the technologies that will power the race to net zero carbon emissions. Solar cells use neodymium, dysprosium and terbium to convert sunlight into power efficiently. Light-emitting diodes depend on europium and dysprosium for their luminescence. Neodymium and samarium are ingredients in powerful magnets used in wind turbines and electric motors. All of these elements are part of the group of 17 ‘rare earths’ — the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table, from lanthanum to lutetium, plus scandium and yttrium.

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Nature 619, 248-251 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02153-z

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Competing Interests

Our study is financially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant number:72088101; 71810107001).

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