Rare Earths Recovery from Secondary Resources: Opportunities, Challenges and Environmental impacts

Rare earths are not as rare as the name suggests, they are relatively abundant in the earth`s crust,
but their concentration is less in ore deposits, in particular heavy rare earths. Commercially,
REEs are extracted from the bastnasite, monazite and xenotime ores. The extraction of REEs
from mineral ore (primary source) is a complicated multi step process with a huge amount of
toxic wa ste released during the processes. The recovery of REEs from secondary sources such
as Coal Fly Ash (CFA) CFA), recycling and extracting tailings can serve as a promising alternative in
addition to traditional mining. Further, the recovery of REEs from secondary sources will not
only address the imbalance in supply and demand of certain REEs, but also help in
reducing the environmental damage due to toxic wastes such as ore tailings, industrial waste,
e waste, and CFA.