COSMOS MAGAZINE
We often hear about rare earth elements and their importance to modern industry. But what are these minerals and why do their chemical properties make them so valuable?
Cerium is a chemical element with the Ce symbol, used in several applications and fundamental in the surface finish of glass and mirrors. Credit: RHJ / iStock / Getty Images Plus.
Rare earth elements — including the lanthanides, scandium, and yttrium — are chemically similar metals that, despite being more abundant than gold, are considered "rare" due to their scattered distribution, challenging extraction, and, in some cases like promethium, their extreme scarcity or radioactivity.
How are rare earth elements used?
Despite being hard to mine and refine, rare earth elements are essential to modern technology — enabling smaller, longer-lasting, and more efficient devices like smartphones, headphones, and microchips, as well as playing key roles in industries from electronics to pharmaceuticals.
Magic of magnets
Rare earth elements are crucial for making powerful magnetic alloys — used in technologies like electric car motors, wind turbines, and MRI machines — because their unique atomic structures enable the creation of small, strong, and durable magnets essential for efficient energy conversion and compact devices.
Rare and pure
Rare earth elements are vital for modern technology due to their unique properties and lack of substitutes, but they require extremely complex and precise purification processes after mining— mainly dominated by China —and are often hidden in everyday devices in tiny amounts, making their critical role largely invisible to the public.