Market insights

The Europium rare earth element (REE) market is driven by the demand for high-performance materials used in various high-tech and industrial applications. Europium is a soft, silvery metal, primarily used in phosphors for applications like fluorescent lighting, television screens, and LED displays. It also has critical uses in nuclear reactors and is a key component in certain types of lasers and other electronic devices.

The Europium (Eu) recycling strategy focuses on recovering this critical rare earth element from used electronics, fluorescent lighting, and other end-of-life products to reduce reliance on primary mining and ensure a sustainable supply. Given Europium’s vital role in high-tech applications like displays, lighting, and nuclear technology, efficient recycling is essential to minimize environmental impact and preserve resources. The strategy involves improving collection methods, advancing separation technologies, and enhancing the efficiency of recycling processes. Wheel diagram indicating the number of publications covering each circular economy strategy; the most explored elements appear in the inner circle. Five circular economy strategies are considered here, including reuse, reduce, remanufacture, recycle and lifetime extension.

Mining insights

Insights

  • Market Share: China holds a dominant share of the global Europium market, accounting for about 70-80% of global production. This dominance is due to China’s substantial rare earth reserves, extensive mining operations, and refining capabilities.
  • Other countries like Russia, the United States, and Australia contribute smaller portions of the global market, generally around 2-3% each, with India, Brazil, and Malaysia contributing even smaller shares (less than 1% each).
  • Purity: Europium’s purity level significantly affects its price, with higher purity materials being more expensive and sought after in advanced technologies like displays, lighting, and nuclear reactors.

Europium leaching and hydrometallurgical recovery are critical processes for extracting this rare and valuable element. The success of these processes relies on careful reagent selection, optimization of operational conditions, and advanced separation techniques like solvent extraction, precipitation, and ion exchange. Despite challenges such as selective extraction and environmental concerns, advances in these methods continue to make europium extraction more efficient, contributing to its growing demand in high-tech applications.

Insights

  • Both Vital Metals and Tasman Metals are in the early to mid-stages of developing new rare earth projects, focusing on supplying europium and other critical elements.
  • Vital Metals’ Nechalacho Project is progressing with a focus on rare earth extraction, refining, and increasing production capabilities for both light and heavy rare earths, including europium. The company is focused on providing rare earths to the North American market.
  • Tasman Metals’ Norra Karr Project holds significant potential, as it is one of the largest heavy rare earth deposits in Europe, containing europium. The company is still working through feasibility studies and environmental approvals but aims to supply europium to the growing European market for rare earths.

Recycling ratio and streams

Currently, the recycling ratio of europium is relatively high in specific streams such as fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and phosphor materials from displays, with recovery rates ranging from 90% to 98%. These high recovery rates are due to well-established recycling processes, such as thermal treatment and acid leaching, which effectively extract europium from phosphor materials used in lighting and display technologies.

However, in other waste streams like e-waste, catalysts, and electric vehicle batteries, the recycling ratio for europium tends to be lower, around 50% to 70%. This is due to the complexity of separating europium from the diverse range of materials and metals involved in these products. E-waste recycling is particularly challenging because europium is only a trace element among many other valuable metals like gold, copper, and palladium.

Refining trends

  • Solvent Extraction and Selective Leaching: Techniques like liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) using tributyl phosphate (TBP) or ionic liquids are being optimized for selective recovery of europium from rare earth ores. Additionally, acid leaching using sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid is being fine-tuned to improve europium recovery while minimizing the co-extraction of other rare earth elements.
  • Bioleaching: This method uses microorganisms like Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans to solubilize europium from ores, offering a more environmentally friendly alternative to chemical leaching. Research is focused on increasing the efficiency and scalability of bioleaching for europium.
  • Advanced Solvent Extraction (SX): The use of di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) and cyanex 923 as extractants in solvent extraction is being refined to enhance the separation and purification of europium from other lanthanides. This involves optimizing parameters such as pH, temperature, and solvent-to-feed ratios.
  • Electrochemical Recovery: Electrowinning is being explored as an alternative method to recover europium from leach solutions. This involves using electrodes to selectively precipitate europium, minimizing the environmental impact compared to traditional smelting.
  • Recycling of E-Waste: Recovery from phosphorescent materials (such as those found in TV screens and LED lights) and catalytic converters is being optimized through hydrometallurgical processes like chloride roasting followed by solvent extraction. This supports the European Union’s push for a circular economy in critical rare earths.
  • Separation and Purification: To separate europium from other lanthanides such as lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium, co-precipitation and ion-exchange methods are being refined. Monazite ore and bastnäsite concentrates are the main sources targeted for these processes.

Prospective applications

Insights

  • Europium Oxide (Eu2O3): The market size for europium oxide is expected to grow significantly due to the increasing demand for LED lighting, OLED displays, and other electronics. By 2040, the market size is projected to be over $2.5 billion.
  • Europium Metal (Eu): The europium metal market is smaller but growing, especially in high-tech industries like high-performance magnets and nuclear technology. The market is projected to increase to $1 billion by 2040.
  • Europium-Doped Phosphors: The demand for europium-doped phosphors will continue to rise with the growth of LED lighting and displays, with a projected market size of over $4.5 billion by 2040.
  • Europium Compounds (EuCl3, Eu(NO3)3): Europium compounds have a niche market in optical and medical applications. The market size is expected to grow modestly to $0.8 billion by 2040.
  • Europium Droppings: Although the market for residual europium is currently small, it is expected to expand with the rise in recycling technologies. By 2040, the market could reach $0.3 billion.

Deep purifications

My favorite method for deep purification is definitely zone melting. However, many other techniques are widely observed for deep rare earth purification.  Achieving 99.999% purity europium ingot requires a combination of electrolytic reduction, zone refining, and other refining methods like vacuum distillation or selective precipitation. These methods, particularly when applied in sequence, can effectively purify europium metal to the ultra-high purity levels needed for specialized applications.

In the past 60 years of development, remarkable achievements have been achieved in scientific research and industrial application of rare earth elements, forming a relatively well-developed rare earth industrial system. But at the same time, it should also be noted that there are issues in many areas that need to be solved.

(1) Molten salt electrolysis and metal thermal reduction possess high efficiency and yield, but low purity of rare earth metals and high energy consumption are generally non-negligible.

(2) The preparation process of rare earth metals is mainly a manual operation with low automation degree and severe environmental pollution issue.

(3) Deep purification ability of rare earth metals is insufficient, and the industrialization is limited to the use of vacuum distillation, which is difficult to meet the needs of high technology development.

Consequently, expensive price of high-purity rare earth metals appeared and limit their application. Therefore, the following directions are the focus of our attention in future:

(1) The impurity concentration of rare earth metal should be further reduced so as to provide high purity starting material for the purification process.

(2) A combination of various purification methods should be chosen to remove the impurities for considering the kinds and uses of rare earth metals.

(3) Purification methods suitable for mass production such as vacuum levitation melting and electron beam melting should be developed and researched.

The deep purification of Europium (99.999%) is essential for ensuring the performance and reliability of Europium-based materials in these advanced industries. The increasing demand for high-purity europium is driven by the need for efficiency, sustainability, and precision in applications ranging from electronics and energy systems to healthcare and nuclear safety.

Some practices for hardware and technology