Rare earths are a group of 15 elements in the periodic table known as the Lanthanide series. Rare earths are categorised into Light Rare Earths (lanthanum to samarium) and Heavy Rare Earths (europium to lutetium).
They are key enablers for technologies looking to lower emissions, reduce energy consumption, as well as improve efficiency, performance, speed, durability, and thermal stability. They are also a key component in technologies that seek to make products lighter and smaller.
Rare earths react with other metallic and non-metallic elements to form compounds each of which has specific chemical behaviours. This makes them indispensable and non-replaceable in many electrical, optical, magnetic, and catalytic applications.
Rare earth elements are relatively plentiful in the earth’s crust, however, because of their geochemical properties, rare earth elements are typically dispersed. This means they are not often found in concentration to make them viable to mine. It was the scarcity of these minerals that led to them being called rare earths.
Pensana plc (LON:PRE) explores and mines neodymium, praseodymium, and rare earth minerals. The Company’s flagship assets are the Saltend rare earth refinery project in the United Kingdom and Longonjo neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) Project in Angola.
