A solid-state “atomic channel” for separating rare earth elements

Nice. Here's MP Minerals' plant for doing that, in Alliance, TX.[1] It's a modest sized plant in an industrial park. It's fed by a huge mine in California, which has an onsite beneficiation plant. Beneficiation is the first step of separation - sorting the good stuff out from the unwanted dirt, with rock crushers, screens, and flotation. This being "rare" earth mining, the amount of good stuff is tiny relative to the unwanted dirt. This new technology works on the separated good stuff.

Although these separation plants aren't big compared to mines, US mines had been sending rare earth ores to China for processing. That's gradually moving back to the US as more separating plants are built.

[1] https://vimeo.com/1062796280/dc953ac6d5?

> Chong Liu and her colleagues knew that one of the differences between rare earth ions was the size of the water shell surrounding each one when they are dissolved in solution. Lighter rare earths like lanthanum have larger first water shell, while heavier rare earths like dysprosium have a smaller first shell. Taking advantage of that size difference, Chong Liu’s group engineered manganese oxide so that the gaps between its stacked layers were only a few water molecules wide. Then, they squeezed raw mixtures of rare earth elements inside.

Cool! Does this only work with a mixture of mostly rare earths, or can ores be "squeezed...inside"? Also, is the end product metal or intercalated manganese oxide?

Very interesting, even if it is at an early stage and I have to wonder what the throughput would look like in an industrial process. There's value in proving that this approach can work even if it doesn't become the basis for separation plants in the future.