Materials Atlas DefMetrix

Rare Earth Magnets · Service

Rare Earth Magnets Rare Earth Metal Reduction

My oxide is domestic. Who turns it into metal without shipping it overseas?

What it is

Reducing rare earth oxide to metal, by molten salt electrolysis or by metallothermic reduction with calcium or lithium. Energy intensive, environmentally awkward and almost invisible in supply chain discussions, which is exactly why it is worth tracking. Oxide that has to travel abroad for reduction fails a whole-of-chain sourcing rule regardless of where it was mined and separated.

Suppliers

Suppliers 1

Companies that perform this process on customer material.

  • Las Vegas, NV · Mill

    The company states concentrate is separated and refined at Mountain Pass 'and reduced to metal'. This is the significant claim on this page: metal reduction is the step most often missing from Western rare earth chains, and oxide that has to travel abroad for reduction fails a whole-of-chain sourcing rule regardless of where it was mined.

    source

Input material

Forms this process takes in.

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