Molten salt electrolysis and room temperature ionic liquid electrochemical processes for refining rare earth metals: Environmental and economic performance comparison

Circularizing end of life products such as electronic waste can open a new source for rare earth elements (REEs) that will decrease the demand pressure on conventional virgin production. The last step to produce REEs consists of a refining process to convert rare earth oxide (REO) to REE metal. One promising technology is processing REO via a room temperature ionic liquid, which is characterized by low energy requirements in contrast to existing REEs extraction processes. In this work, life cycle and techno-economic assessments are performed and compared against molten salt electrolysis. The results show that both processes have advantages and disadvantages in terms of environmental performance, and that they are similarly competitive in terms of economic performance. A breakeven analysis suggests that future research should focus on coupling the production of REOs with the refining processes to attempt to lower REO cost and make them economically feasible in the U.S.