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future168life OP t1_iuj8v23 wrote

If this substance is mass-produced, it will impact the dominance of mainland China, the largest supplier of rare earths with 80% of the global market. In addition to being used in smartphones, electric vehicles, nuclear magnetic resonance machines, etc., rare earths can also be used in military fields such as fighter planes and missiles, and have considerable strategic value. According to data previously published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tetrataenite consists of 50% iron and 50% nickel, with iron and nickel atoms arranged alternately in a regular periodic crystal structure. It produces a hard magnet, that is, the direction of magnetization does not change easily, and its magnetic properties are close to that of rare-earth magnets. With the rapid development of industries such as electric vehicles, the global demand for rare earths has been increasing in recent years. U.S. President Joe Biden has previously expressed support for increasing rare earth production, and the European Union also sees diversification of rare earth supply chains.

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KmartQuality t1_iujn1jg wrote

The article makes it sound that this product was seemed basically impossible to produce at scale or economically until someone just decided to do a backyard experiment.

It was so simple nobody ever tried? And voila, a new world economy?

What am I missing?

Also, why does this stuff to only get mined in China? Is it because only they are willing to dig up enough ground to make it worthwhile, thereby ruining their land? There are lots of places people have shown extreme willingness to destroy the future in the search for profit today.

Edit How cheap is china producing this dust?

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Thatingles t1_iujqul7 wrote

It was discovered accidentally. The mixing with phosphorous sounds like standard PhD research stuff; take this bit of chemistry no one has examined closely and work it around to see what happens. Most of the time it doesn't really go anywhere exciting but in this case they found something unexpected and potentially game changing.

I really hope it plays out, it would really help with a lot of issues if we could replace rare earths with nickel-iron alloys. That would be sweet.

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GI_X_JACK t1_iuk8zj4 wrote

It used to be mined all in California. China then sank price of mineralls in the short term to put everyone else out of business until they controlled the market.

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kodos_der_henker t1_iuju2k8 wrote

>Also, why does this stuff to only get mined in China?

Because China is the place were rich ores in high numbers are found, while other place were more important before China started digging, they just cannot get the amount done (like South Africa or California), and now China supplies 80-90% of the worlds demand

The ore in Mongolia contain 3-5% RE, a source in Germany contains 0.5% RE

Greenland might be a future RE export with the ice melting the sources are easier to mine

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KmartQuality t1_iuk0hhe wrote

I get that.

But why does china get so much more of it?

So many valuable, difficult to extract things are mined in many places. Have they just not looked everywhere yet because the demand is so new?

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Dr_SnM t1_iuk6r2y wrote

Geology.

Same reason the middle east has lots of oil and Australia has lots of Uranium.

Blind luck / winning the geological lottery

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El_Minadero t1_iuk1uya wrote

There’s something relatively unique about the deposits in china that makes them very economical to mine.

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Really_McNamington t1_iujui9f wrote

Apparently, the extraction and purification of rare earths gets really unpleasantly toxic. China can get away with things that might be harder to do elsewhere.

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12yearvintage t1_iuk4sw3 wrote

Strong strong possibility the material behaves metal like, but nowhere near as powerfully as well

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