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Sometimes_Stutters t1_iug667x wrote

Fun fact- “Rare Earth” materials are not at all rare. They are actually very common in the earths crust.

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KJ6BWB OP t1_iug7xur wrote

Very common, they just require high technology to get to and China controls most of the available deposits we know of.

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Rough_Idle t1_iugbyw0 wrote

The headline alone was enough to make me wonder how big a brick this news is dropping in certain Chinese trade ministries

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cchiu23 t1_iugzple wrote

China produces the most phosphorus too lol

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MrDuhVinci t1_iuhc12r wrote

Every article you read about technology here is likely very tentative and far from proven for real-world usage. No doubt a 'few' Chinese Scientists will be ordered to investigate its potential as a practical alternative to parts of their 'rare-materials' industry... but they won't be running around in a panic until it becomes even a modest possibility.

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ElJamoquio t1_iui58q2 wrote

> they just require high technology to get to

mmm, they just create 3000 lbs of toxic waste per EV-traction-motor built.

It's not that high tech, it's just toxic.

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4t0mik t1_iugt8q5 wrote

I'm a betting Russia has a lot too.

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cchiu23 t1_iugzjct wrote

They're also experts in refining them

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Alex_2259 t1_iugjho0 wrote

Doesn't bode well for the future of humanity.

I forgot, this sub is filled with China worshipping bots. Even if they're humans that's a bot mindset

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84121629 t1_iugs0c3 wrote

Unless google is lying to me, tetrataenite is only found in meteorites.

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DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iugw72t wrote

Before this research, yes. But tetrataenite isn't a rare earth metal, rather it's a substitute for rare earth metals.

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KJ6BWB OP t1_iuenc72 wrote

> According to the team, phosphorus allows the iron and nickel atoms to move faster, enabling them to form the necessary ordered stacking without waiting for millions of years. They were able to accelerate tetrataenite formation by between 11 and 15 orders of magnitude by mixing iron, nickel, and phosphorus in the right quantities. This meant the material was able to form over a few seconds in a simple casting.

> “What was so astonishing was that no special treatment was needed. We just melted the alloy, poured it into a mold, and we had tetrataenite,” says Greer. “The previous view in the field was that you couldn’t get tetrataenite unless you did something extreme, because otherwise, you’d have to wait millions of years for it to form. This result represents a total change in how we think about this material.”

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Woooooooo8shfire t1_iugb5av wrote

So you you get what is basically potassium-doped tetrataenite? I want to know more about what they made.

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PandaCommando69 t1_iufkvmy wrote

This is great --hopefully their next research stages pan out.

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HandMikePens t1_iuf2ioz wrote

magnets?! again?! so unyielding with their mysteries

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GMElonMusk t1_iufdu7g wrote

Magnets, How do they work?

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BophadeezgamesYT t1_iufxv4o wrote

Magnets more like magic am I right?

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HandMikePens t1_iuhqrqx wrote

That’s capacitors, my bad, that’s supposed to be on the “magic” thread. It’s a njatc ibew joke

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Grinagh t1_iueyete wrote

Raises questions about whether this exists in the core of our planet as iron and nickel make up the core but phosphorus could easily be there too.

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No-Owl9201 t1_iugki6c wrote

Always scientific knowledge progress on batteries!

I wonder in the past if we had spent a tenth of what was spent on oil exploration, on developing batteries, how different a planet we would have now.

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captain_chocolate t1_iuhffi9 wrote

"“Rare earth” is a misleading term that is sort of an inside joke among organic chemistry aficionados. It refers to a group of elements on the periodic table. “Noble gases” is another term that has little meaning except to organic chemists. "

Funny he said it was an inside joke. I studied inorganic chemistry in grad school, and the organic chemists had no use for the rare earths or noble gases. C, N, O, S, occasionally a halogen, and Mg for catalysis. That's about it.

And what the hell is an "organic chemistry aficionados"? People who stand around at dinner parties with a wine spritzer saying "Oh dear, have seen the dreadful state of the Claisen condensation these days? Makes me yearn for the days when a good Diels–Alder reaction was enough to satisfy the mind."

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Berkamin t1_iugyqom wrote

Besides this, there's also "clean earth magnets" that involve nothing but iron and nitrogen:

Niron Magnetics

These magnets are allegedly more powerful than rare earth magnets, but neither of the ingredients that go into them are rare.

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Baggytrousers27 t1_iuhme5g wrote

Don't they react with humidity to form ammonia?

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Berkamin t1_iuhp6wg wrote

You mean these magnets? I honestly don't know. I only know that they're really strong and don't contain rare elements.

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lazy_phoenix t1_iuijxbb wrote

"Fucking magnets, how do they work?" -Insane clown posse

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FuturologyBot t1_iuerdjc wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/KJ6BWB:

> According to the team, phosphorus allows the iron and nickel atoms to move faster, enabling them to form the necessary ordered stacking without waiting for millions of years. They were able to accelerate tetrataenite formation by between 11 and 15 orders of magnitude by mixing iron, nickel, and phosphorus in the right quantities. This meant the material was able to form over a few seconds in a simple casting.

> “What was so astonishing was that no special treatment was needed. We just melted the alloy, poured it into a mold, and we had tetrataenite,” says Greer. “The previous view in the field was that you couldn’t get tetrataenite unless you did something extreme, because otherwise, you’d have to wait millions of years for it to form. This result represents a total change in how we think about this material.”

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yhn4ql/researchers_discover_substitutes_for_rare_earth/iuenc72/

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not_a_droid t1_iuewx3j wrote

Humans are cockroaches, we don’t die, we just multiply

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