New light has been shed on the formation of increasingly precious rare earth elements (REEs) by researchers from Trinity College Dublin. They accomplished this by creating synthetic rocks and testing their responses to varying environmental conditions. REEs are used in many electronic devices and green energy technologies, including everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.
The findings, just published on September 19 in the journal Global Challenges, have implications for recycling REEs from electronic waste, designing materials with advanced functional properties, and even for finding new REE deposits hidden around the globe.
Dr. Juan Diego Rodriguez-Blanco, Associate Professor in Nanomineralogy at Trinity and an iCRAG (SFI Research Centre in Applied Geosciences) Funded Investigator, was the principal investigator of the work. He said:
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