Military aspect: Rare earth is known as "gold" in industry. Because of its excellent physical properties such as optoelectromagnetism, it can be combined with other materials to form new materials with different properties. Its most significant function is to greatly improve the quality and performance of other products. For example, the tactical performance of steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy and titanium alloy used to manufacture tanks, planes and missiles will be greatly improved.
Metallurgical industry: adding rare earth metals or fluorides and silicides to steel can refine, desulfurize and neutralize harmful impurities with low melting point, and improve the machinability of steel; Rare-earth ferrosilicon alloy and rare-earth ferrosilicon magnesium alloy are used as nodulizers to produce rare-earth ductile iron, which are widely used in machinery manufacturing industries such as automobiles, tractors and diesel engines because they are particularly suitable for producing complex ductile iron castings with special requirements.
Petrochemical industry: molecular sieve catalyst made of rare earth has the advantages of high activity, good selectivity and strong resistance to heavy metal poisoning, and it replaces aluminum silicate catalyst in petroleum catalytic cracking process.
Distribution: In addition to Baiyun Obo, Gannan Jiangxi, Peyo Guangdong and Liangshan Inner Mongolia, there are also rare earth deposits in Shandong, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hubei, Henan, Shanxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi and Xinjiang provinces, but the resources are far less than those in concentrated mineralization areas.
98% of the total rare earth resources in China are distributed in Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong and other regions, forming a distribution pattern of north, south, east and west, with the characteristics of light in the north and heavy in the south.
One of the extended data is the lack of sulfide and sulfate (only a few), which shows that rare earth elements have oxygen affinity;
Second, the silicate of rare earth is mainly island-shaped, without layered, frame-shaped and chain-shaped structure;
Thirdly, some rare earth minerals (especially complex oxides and silicates) are amorphous;
Fourthly, the distribution of rare earth minerals is mainly silicate and oxide in magmatic rocks and pegmatite, and fluorocarbon and phosphate are mainly in hydrothermal deposits and weathered crust deposits. Most yttrium-rich minerals occur in granite and pegmatite, aerogenic hydrothermal deposits and related hydrothermal deposits.
Fifth, because of the similarity of atomic structure, chemistry and crystal chemistry, rare earth elements often coexist in the same mineral, that is, cerium rare earth elements and yttrium rare earth elements often coexist in the same mineral, but these elements do not coexist in equal amounts. Some minerals are mainly rare earths containing cerium, while others are mainly yttrium.
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