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Material World
Mineral · (Ce,La)CO3F

Bastnäsite

A rare earth fluorocarbonate — the principal ore of the light rare earths, and the mineral behind most magnets in the world.

Ore

Bastnäsite is a carbonate carrying fluorine and a mixture of rare earth elements, and it is where most of the world's light rare earths come from. Its formula is written with cerium and lanthanum bracketed together because the mineral does not choose between them: the site holds whichever rare earth was available, in whatever proportion the rock provided.

That indifference is the whole problem of the rare earths in one crystal. They substitute for one another freely because their ions are nearly the same size and charge, which is why they occur together, and why getting one out means separating it from all the others.

Economic significance

Bastnäsite deposits are few and large, and the processing capacity for what comes out of them is fewer still. The result is that rare earth supply is concentrated to a degree unusual even among strategic minerals, and that concentration is a matter of who is willing to run the separation rather than of where the rock is.

The ore is also commonly radioactive, carrying thorium alongside the rare earths, which adds a waste problem to every operation and is a substantial part of why the separation is done in so few places.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is an input to

  • Rare earth separation — process · the principal ore of the light rare earths, carrying all of them together

is an ore of

  • Cerium — element · the most abundant rare earth in the ore, and usually the largest product by mass
  • Neodymium — element · the element the mine is generally opened for, though not the one it yields most of

is a component of

  • Carbonatite — rock · the rare earth fluorocarbonate, and the mineral most of the world's light rare earths are actually extracted from

is an alternative to

  • Monazite — mineral · as light rare earth ore, and the deciding factor is thorium: monazite carries enough to make the residue a radioactive waste problem and bastnäsite carries far less, which is why the large operations are bastnäsite and monazite is mostly a by-product

contains

  • Carbon — element
  • Cerium — element · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it
  • Fluorine — element
  • Lanthanum — element · substitutes within a solid solution — an individual specimen may hold little of it
  • Oxygen — element

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Bastnäsite back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Bastnäsite → is an ore of (the element the mine is generally opened for, though not the one it yields most of) → Neodymium → is used in (in the speaker, the microphone and the vibration motor, as the magnet alloy) → Smartphone → is used in (and it is where four separate raw-material arguments meet — the 3TG conflict minerals, cobalt, the rare earths, and everything too dispersed to recover) → Electronics manufacture → is associated with (and the supply chain it produced is the deepest and most concentrated in the world economy) → The semiconductor era complete chain
  • Bastnäsite → is an input to (the principal ore of the light rare earths, carrying all of them together) → Rare earth separation → produces (a light rare earth, separated from its neighbours by countercurrent solvent extraction) → Lanthanum → is a component of (roughly a quarter, again as the ore gave it) → Mischmetal → is used as (added to molten steel to scavenge sulfur and oxygen and reshape the inclusions that remain, which improves toughness — an unglamorous use that consumes a great deal of it) → Alloying
  • Bastnäsite → is an ore of (the most abundant rare earth in the ore, and usually the largest product by mass) → Cerium → is a component of (about half, because that is the proportion the ore delivers — mischmetal is the light rare earths left unseparated) → Mischmetal → is used as (added to molten steel to scavenge sulfur and oxygen and reshape the inclusions that remain, which improves toughness — an unglamorous use that consumes a great deal of it) → Alloying
  • Bastnäsite → is a component of (the rare earth fluorocarbonate, and the mineral most of the world's light rare earths are actually extracted from) → Carbonatite
  • Bastnäsite → is an input to (the principal ore of the light rare earths, carrying all of them together) → Rare earth separation → produces (a light rare earth, separated from its neighbours by countercurrent solvent extraction) → Cerium → is a component of (about half, because that is the proportion the ore delivers — mischmetal is the light rare earths left unseparated) → Mischmetal → is used as (added to molten steel to scavenge sulfur and oxygen and reshape the inclusions that remain, which improves toughness — an unglamorous use that consumes a great deal of it) → Alloying
  • Bastnäsite → is an input to (the principal ore of the light rare earths, carrying all of them together) → Rare earth separation → produces (a light rare earth, separated from its neighbours by countercurrent solvent extraction) → Praseodymium → is used as (substitutes for part of the neodymium with little loss of performance) → Permanent magnets

These are the most distinct paths onward. Bastnäsite ends up in others besides.