"Rare Earth Frontiers is a timely text. As Klinger notes, rare earths are neither rare nor technically earths, but they are still widely believed to be both. Although her approach focuses on the human, or cultural, geography of rare earths mining, she does not ignore the geological occurrence of these mineral types, both on Earth and on the moon.... This volume is excellently organized, insightfully written, and extensively sourced."―Choice Drawing on ethnographic, archival, and interview data gathered in local languages and offering possible solutions to the problems it documents, this book examines the production of the rare earth frontier as a place, a concept, and a zone of contestation, sacrifice, and transformation. Rare Earth Frontiers is a work of human geography that serves to demystify the powerful elements that make possible the miniaturization of electronics, green energy and medical technologies, and essential telecommunications and defense systems. Julie Michelle Klinger draws attention to the fact that the rare earths we rely on most are as common as copper or lead, and this means the implications of their extraction are global. Klinger excavates the rich historical origins and ongoing ramifications of the quest to mine rare earths in ever more impossible places. Klinger writes about the devastating damage to lives and the environment caused by the exploitation of rare earths. She demonstrates in human terms how scarcity myths have been conscripted into diverse geopolitical campaigns that use rare earth mining as a pretext to capture spaces that have historically fallen beyond the grasp of centralized power. These include legally and logistically forbidding locations in the Amazon, Greenland, and Afghanistan, and on the Moon.

The growth and development witnessed today in modern science, engineering, and technology owes a heavy debt to the rare, refractory, and reactive metals group, of which niobium is a member. Extractive Metallurgy of Niobium presents a vivid account of the metal through its comprehensive discussions of properties and applications, resources and resource processing, chemical processing and compound preparation, metal extraction, and refining and consolidation. Typical flow sheets adopted in some leading niobium-producing countries for the beneficiation of various niobium sources are presented, and various chemical processes for producing pure forms of niobium intermediates such as chloride, fluoride, and oxide are discussed. The book also explains how to liberate the metal from its intermediates and describes the physico-chemical principles involved. It is an excellent reference for chemical metallurgists, hydrometallurgists, extraction and process metallurgists, and minerals processors. It is also valuable to a wide variety of scientists, engineers, technologists, and students interested in the topic.

Hydrometallurgy of Rare Earths: Extraction and Separation provides the basic knowledge for rare earth extraction and separation, including flow sheet selection criteria and related technology. The book includes the latest research findings on all rare earth separation processes, methods of controlling operation costs, and strategies that help lower wastewater and waste solid discharge. It discusses many real process parameters and actual situations in rare earth separation plants, also examining the basic principles, technologies, process parameters and advances and achievements in the area of rare earth extraction and separation. In addition, the book covers extraction separation theory as developed by Professor Guanxian Xu and Professor Chunhua Yan and the creative use of a computational simulation program to replace the bench scale and pilot plant tests and directly design rare earth extraction separation processes. - Outlines the theory of solvent extraction and separation of rare earths (REs) - Provides the necessary tools for a REs separation plant design - Includes a unique simulation program for the calculation of all process parameters - Includes Chinese nomenclature that is useful for identifying the various processes, also comparing it to the global literature

Volume 21 of Reviews in Mineralogy treats a short course on the rare earth elements to about 80 participants in San Francisco, California, December 1-3, 1989, just prior to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Contents: Cosmochemistry of the Rare Earth Elements: Condensation and Evaporation Processes Radiogenic Isotope Geochemistry of Rare Earth Elements Partitioning of Rare Earth Elements between Major Silicate Minerals and Basaltic Melts An Approach to Trace Element Modeling Using a Simple Igneous System as an Example Rare Earth Elements in Upper Mantle Rocks Rare Earth Elements in Metamorphic Rocks Rare Earth Elements in Sedimentary Rocks: Influence of Provenance and Sedimentary Processes Aqueous Geochemistry of Rare Earth Elements Rare Earth Elements in Lunar Materials Compositional and Phase Relations among Rare Earth Element Minerals Economic Geology of Rare Earth Minerals Cathodoluminescence Emission Spectra of Rare Earth Element Activators in Minerals