China has single-handedly defeated almost all developed countries in the rare earth battlefield, which is clearly an uphill battle.
Europe, America and Japan, with their dominant position in the world trade system, first launched a legal battle against China's export quota system. By resorting to the WTO tribunal, China failed this early strategy. With this as the beginning, the business world patent war ensued.
In order to block the downstream expansion of Chinese manufacturers, companies such as Sumitomo Metal of Japan and Macquarie Magnetic Industry of the United States have long used patents to set up many barriers for the NdFeb industry. Because of the early start, I was able to master the core patents, not only the parts patent, but also the process patent. In the component patent, also try to achieve a set of ratio components comprehensive coverage, so that later to avoid. A method patent is designed to protect a component after the patent expires, preventing a competitor from actually producing it.
In addition, various ancillary processes and technological improvements are also an important part of the patent strategy. In this way, US and Japanese companies have formed a heavy protective net against Japanese companies' market expansion.
During the years when China's magnet industry was exporting to the West, Sumitomo Metal initiated a number of patent lawsuits and 337 investigations, successfully curbing the export development of a large number of Chinese enterprises. According to the report, only a quarter to a fifth of China's annual production of neodymium magnets is patented, meaning that most of the unlicensed products cannot be exported to patent-protected regions such as Europe, the United States and Japan.
Of course, the most fundamental way to avoid China's constraints at the source is to take a different path and take drastic measures to address the demand for rare-earth materials.
Export controls initiated by China in 2010 are hurting Japanese industries. Toshiba, Toyota, Honda and others immediately began developing technologies to reduce their use of rare earths. Meanwhile, the magnet recycling industry is also getting attention.
The United States, which is also a large user of rare earth materials for advanced weapons, is more concerned than Japan. The U.S. Department of Energy launched the Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies program, or React, with a total investment of $22 million. The goal is to develop magnets with fewer rare earth elements, which is completely unnecessary.
Academics working on the project include Laura Lewis of Northwestern University, William McCallum of Iowa State University, Stephen Constantinis of Arnold Magnetic Technologies and Everett Carpenter of Japan Union University in Virginia, all with their own unique skills. Lewis used a mixture of iron and nickel to improve the performance of high-end magnets, and McCallum made cerium bring the magnetic field. Although cerium is also a rare earth element, it is abundant in the United States. Constantinescu took a unique approach, using computer algorithms to select magnetic materials in the hope of finding the next alternative to NdFeb's giant stars. Carpenter has bigger ambitions. He wanted to make cheap and powerful magnets by using carbon, an extremely abundant and cheap material, to inject iron in the form of nanoparticles.
However, advances in materials science have been a great challenge to the laws of physics. Many technological breakthroughs are more like the work of Shennong and a bit of luck. Instead of praying for a miracle, more realistic solutions, such as discovering new deposits and breaking the source monopoly, are needed.
Quai Mountain in California, Weld in Australia, and Arasha in Brazil all now have large rare-earth industries. Myanmar is also producing rare-earth minerals at a roaring pace, including the important and rare dysprosium mine. Add India, Malaysia, Canada and other countries, a global rare-earth mining boom.
More exciting news from Japan. In early 2018, Japanese scholar Tai-Hao Kato announced the discovery of a rare earth deposit in the seabed silt of Minamitori Island, Japan's easternmost island, with enough deposits to last the world for 400 years. Although seabed mining is so expensive that it is currently unprofitable, it hardly makes sense. However, the intention of Japan's hyping is clearly to knock China.
There's a tough road ahead
The international struggle for resources has been such a hot topic in both film and television fiction and in people's spare time that there is a standard but well-worn story template. In reality, the complex international political and commercial game is obviously beyond the control of any single schemer. But in the final analysis, it is often technological innovation that determines the rotation of resource exporters and consumers. A revolution in shale oil technology has catapulted the United States from the world's largest oil importer to the largest oil producer. It has also brought down a clutch of oil-rich countries, forced to suffer the consequences of their past lack of progress, over-dependence on resources and undiversified economic structures.
In the global chain of magnets, changes in technology affect the profits and losses of businesses everywhere. Although China has got rid of the position of a pure raw material supplier and entered the downstream magnet manufacturing, there is still a technological gap with developed countries and a lack of high-end market. On the one hand, the technological advantages of developed countries; On the other hand, countries are competing to open new mines in the raw material market. The share of rare earths is actually falling. It's not a difficult situation.
However, despite the difficulties, God did not shortchange the industrious people, and he left China the ultimate lucky prize -- rare earth minerals rich in dysprosium. As mentioned above, dysprosium plays an irreplaceable role in the key process of solving the high temperature instability of NdFeB materials. In nature, however, dysprosium is a heavy rare earth, accounting for only 1 percent of all rare earths. Nearly all of that precious dysprosium ore is mined by mines in southern China and Myanmar, where 70 percent is mined and processed by Chinese companies. It also means that the global magnet industry will remain dependent on Chinese supplies of this crucial material for the foreseeable future.
It must be said that, even in a world where technological prowess is becoming ever more important, luck is still a powerful predictor.
