Skip to main content

Greener techniques could help find rare minerals for phones

Promotional image for Tech For Change. Person standing on solar panel looking at sunset.
This story is part of Tech for Change: an ongoing series in which we shine a spotlight on positive uses of technology, and showcase how they're helping to make the world a better place.

Finding and extracting enough rare earth minerals to power the growing number of mobile phones is a tough challenge that can wreak havoc on the environment — but new techniques could help.

Researchers say they have removed valuable rare earth elements (REE) from waste at high enough yields to resolve issues for manufacturers while boosting their profits. The scientists said in a recent paper that their process is kinder to the environment because it uses less energy than other methods and turns the stream of acid often used to recover the elements into a trickle.

Recommended Videos

“A smartphone can have as many as eight different REEs in it,” Rice University chemist James Tour, the author of the study, told Digital Trends in an interview. “The red, blue, and green screen colors are enhanced by REEs, as are the vibrating mechanism and the speakers.”

Minerals that keep your phone running

People walk through the shaft at Steenkampskraal (SKK) rare-earth mine.
The rare-earth minerals in these mines are used in the manufacturing of powerful magnets, which are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, and many other applications. Image used with permission by copyright holder

Tour’s lab used a special heating process that produces graphene from any solid carbon source to recover rare earth metals. The minerals have magnetic and electronic properties critical to modern electronics and green technologies.

While industrial extraction from coal fly ash, bauxite residue, and electronic waste usually involves strong acid — a time-consuming, non-green process — the Rice lab heats fly ash and other materials to about 5,432 degrees Fahrenheit in a second. The process turns the waste into highly soluble “activated REE species.”

Tour said treating fly ash by flash Joule heating “breaks the glass that encases these elements and converts REE phosphates to metal oxides that dissolve much more easily.” Industrial processes use a 15-molar concentration of nitric acid to extract the materials; the Rice process uses a much milder 0.1-molar concentration of hydrochloric acid that still yields more product.

The researchers found flash heating coal fly ash (CFA) more than doubled the yield of most rare earth elements using very mild acid than leaching untreated CFA in strong acids.

“The strategy is general for various wastes,” Bing Deng, one of the researchers, said. “We proved that the REE recovery yields were improved from coal fly ash, bauxite residue, and electronic wastes by the same activation process.”

Environmental issues

Deloitte Global predicts that smartphones — the world’s most popular consumer electronics devices that are expected to have an installed base of 4.5 billion in 2022 — will generate 146 million tons of CO2 or equivalent emissions this year alone.

“The fast turnover of new phones each year is a problem as we consume technology at a fast pace, which also has environmental impacts,” Alexander Gysi, a professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Science at the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, told Digital Trends in an interview.

While recycling would help cut emissions, mining is still cheaper and necessary to keep up with the growing demand for tech devices, said Gysi. Every year, their components become smaller and lighter, have a higher battery life, and are remixed to increase the quality of displays, he added.

Staples Begins Recyling Electronics To Tackle "E-Waste."
Tim Boyle/Getty Images

“Our cell phones are supercharged with the REE and other metals like copper and gold; hence being able to reuse some of the parts to extract REE would be beneficial, but we are not there yet.”

Gysi said that extracting REE from natural mineral deposits can be difficult, because these different REEs occur together in various mineral types. To extract the minerals requires mechanical or physical separation as well as chemical separation.

“This process can also involve chemicals that need to be treated carefully via mine waste recovery,” Gysi said. “With the mining and extraction regulations in North America, it could be beneficial to do it locally and in a responsible way, but it is likely to be more expensive and needs incentives to do so.”

Rare Earth Mineral (REEs) mining.
Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images

Gysi’s lab is working on new REE extraction techniques. The researchers investigated how REEs are separated chemically in natural systems in supercritical hydrothermal fluids in the Earth’s crust.

“These are essentially high temperature and pressure water solutions,” Gysi said. “We study how different acid/bases and ligands like chloride, fluoride, and hydroxyl can bind to the REE, enhance their solubility, and even help fractionate them. This will permit predicting these metals’ solubility and fractionation behavior and could also potentially be used to develop new technologies.”

New methods to find minerals

Computers might also boost efforts to find rare minerals. Researchers have proposed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that could study a database of rare earth minerals, recognize patterns, and then enable it to spot new potential matches.

Before the advent of AI or machine learning (ML), the discovery of new materials was based on trial and error, materials scientist Prashant Singh, from the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University and the author of the new study, told Digital Trends in an interview.

“The process to take a newly discovered material from lab to market may take 20-30 years, but AI/ML can significantly speed up this process by simulating material properties on computers before setting foot in a lab,” Singh said. “This makes the AI/ML useful for discovering technologically useful compounds.”

Sascha Brodsky
Sascha Brodsky is a writer who focuses on consumer technologies and privacy issues for a broad range of outlets. He’s been…
Baseus power banks are the best way to charge your phone after these discounts
A woman holding a phone with a Baseus Am41 Magnetic Power Bank attached to it.

One of the worst things about being a doomscroller isn't the information you're getting, it's the fear that your battery will die and the scrolling will have to end. This is especially true if you're stuck without power, waiting for the doctor or dentist to finally call your name, or have any other sort of emergency. But, Baseus has you covered with their excellent selection of on-the-go power banks made for your iPhone. Since they're small and fit directly to your phone's magnet charging area, you can think of them more as battery extenders than anything. Plus, if your phone's internal battery is starting to have battery trouble, a Baseus charger is a great way to avoid an annoying battery change session. The best news, however, is that they're all on sale. Here's what you can expect to see coming up:

Baseus Am31 Mini Power Bank — Was $70, Now $50

Read more
Nothing Phone 3: A unique phone that’s not a true flagship
The Nothing Phone 3 in white

As smartphones have become extremely homogenous, companies must find unique ways to stand out from the crowd. For London-based Nothing, this has meant a singular company focus on blending smartphone features with unique designs that allow their phones to stand out in a sea of sameness.

The Nothing Phone 3 is the latest addition to a line of Nothing phones that are unique and polarizing in their design. Earlier this year, Nothing launched the Phone 3a Pro with a unique camera array, and the Phone 3 builds on this while also evolving the Nothing design language.

Read more
Plaud Note, the professional-tier AI notetaker, is 20% off for Prime Day
Four colleagues have a conversation around a Plaud Note AI notetaker.

Lately, as I've been working through stressful hospital visits with family, I've encountered something I haven't in quite awhile. As I hear doctors, nurses, and family say things, I'll be completely unable to remember them moments later. There's just too much going on all at once. Early in my career I encountered the same issue. There were just so many new facets of what I was doing entering my head all at once, from many sources, that it was impossible to keep track of it all. If only there were AI notetaking tools that have helped me through this. AI notetaking tools like Plaud Note and Plaud NotePin, which are both 20% off for Prime Day (from $159 to $127 for either device, saving you $32) and available by tapping the button below.

PLAUD Note Voice Recorder

Read more