Byproduct Surplus: Lighting the Depreciative Europium in China’s Rare Earth Boom
Byproduct Surplus: Lighting the Depreciative Europium in China’s Rare Earth Boom
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副产品过剩：点燃中国稀土热潮中的铕贬值
DOI：
10.1021/acs.est.0c02870
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发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Chen Wei-Qiang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wang Qiao-Chu;Wang Peng;Qiu Yang;Dai Tao;Chen Wei-Qiang
由于其副产品性质、对照明技术的重要性以及全球供应集中度，铕 (Eu) 通常被视为一种重要矿物。然而，现有的基于指标的关键性评估在捕获欧盟供应链信息方面存在局限性，因此无法反映其真实的关键性。本研究量化了1990年至2018年中国大陆欧盟的流量和存量。结果表明：（1）2011年至2018年，中国的欧盟需求下降了75%，这是由于照明技术从荧光灯向发光二极管的转变，使欧盟的重要性显着降低； （2）随着稀土产量的增长，副产品Eu的供应不断增加，导致2018年供应大幅过剩，约1900吨； （3）尽管中国在全球欧盟生产中占据主导地位，但中国开采的欧盟主要以中间产品和最终产品的形式出口，近期国内生产的最终产品中约90%的欧盟用于出口。这项研究表明，欧盟的重要性并不像之前评估的那么严重，并强调了物质流分析的必要性，以全面、动态地了解关键矿产的整个供应链。
Europium (Eu) is often regarded as a critical mineral due to its byproduct nature, importance to lighting technologies, and global supply concentration. However, the existing indicator-based criticality assessments have limitations to capture Eu’s supply chain information and thus fall short of reflecting its true criticality. This study quantified the flows and stocks of Eu in mainland China from 1990 to 2018. Results show that: (1) China’s Eu demand decreased by 75% from 2011 to 2018, as a result of the lighting technology transition from fluorescent lamps to light-emitting diodes, which significantly reduced Eu’s importance; (2) the supply of Eu mined as a byproduct kept increasing together with the growing rare earth production, which caused a substantial supply surplus being ≈1900 t by 2018; (3) despite the leading role of China in global Eu production, Eu mined in China was exported mainly in the form of intermediate and final products, and ≈90% Eu embedded in domestically produced final products was used for export recently. This study indicates that Eu’s criticality is not as severe as previously assessed and highlights the necessity of material flow analysis for a holistic and dynamic view on the entire supply chain of critical minerals.