Let Rare Earth Technology Empower New Productivity

 At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is emerging, and competition for technological high ground in key industries like rare earths is unprecedentedly intense," said Ao Hong, Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of China Rare Earth Group, at the China Rare Earth Science and Technology Innovation Empowering New Productivity Promotion Conference held on May 17.

Ao Hong believes that promoting the integrated development of rare earth technological innovation with strategic emerging industries, future industries, and other forms of new productivity is the essential path to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of China's rare earth industry. It is also the necessary route for building a modern industrial system for the future.

This conference was co-hosted by China Rare Earth Group and the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association in Shenzhen, under the theme "Innovating 'Rare' Hopes · Sailing Towards the Future." Industry experts at the event called for strengthened collaborative innovation in rare earth science and technology to better empower the development of new productivity.

Supporting Materials for Modern High-Tech Industries

"Rare earths are important strategic mineral resources, playing a pivotal role in high-end manufacturing and emerging industrial fields such as new energy vehicles, aerospace, electronic chips, green home appliances, intelligent robotics, and the low-altitude economy," introduced Ao Hong.

Gan Yong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a metallurgical materials expert, pointed out at the conference that rare earths provide an extremely crucial supporting role for modern high-tech industries. Under the backdrop of the "dual carbon" goals, the demand for rare earths will increase daily, further elevating the irreplaceable strategic status of rare earth elements. Their market demand is expected to grow significantly in the future.

Rare earth new material products exhibited at the conference. Photo provided by the conference organizer.

At this conference, industry experts shared and exchanged insights on various new rare earth material technologies and products, many of which are closely related to strategic emerging industries and future industries.

Jiang Chengbao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Beihang University, presented the R&D progress on new rare-earth-alloyed iron-based magnetostrictive materials. Magnetostrictive materials can output high-precision elastic strain under magnetic fields, enabling energy conversion between electrical/magnetic energy and mechanical energy. They have significant application demands in high-tech fields such as sonar underwater target detection and spatial optical transmission.

Yuan Xianqiang, Executive Deputy General Manager of Jiangsu Guosheng New Materials Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Rare Earth Group, introduced that the company is primarily engaged in the research, development, and production of special rare earth materials like cerium-zirconium composite oxides and rare earth compounds with specific physical properties. He mentioned that ultrafine rare earth oxides are important doping components for the dielectric powder of high-end multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). Although they constitute less than 1% of the raw materials, they can effectively improve the reliability of MLCCs. Therefore, this type of rare earth material plays a significant role in the electronic information industry.

 "Rare earth optical functional materials have already made important contributions to fields such as green lighting and displays, laser processing, medical diagnosis, and scientific exploration," said Zhong Jiuping, Associate Professor at the School of Materials, Sun Yat-sen University, sharing the research progress on rare earth scintillator materials for high-resolution detection and imaging. He explained that new rare earth eutectic scintillator materials with ordered light-guiding structures at the sub-micron scale can significantly improve the resolution of radiation detection and imaging.

Enhancing Integrated Innovation Capability in the Rare Earth Industry

Ge Honglin, Party Committee Secretary and President of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, emphasized at the conference that to maintain China's strong position and international competitiveness in the rare earth industry, it is imperative to rely on the hard power of scientific and technological innovation.

Ge Honglin emphasized that the rare earth industry must place scientific and technological innovation at the core of its development, accelerate the integration and optimization of innovation resources, strengthen collaboration among government, industry, academia, research, and application sectors in the rare earth field, and enhance integrated innovation capabilities.

At the same time, efforts should focus on original and disruptive technological innovations, delving into the intrinsic properties of rare earth elements and exploring new functionalities to strive for development initiative amid intense international competition.

This conference has propelled collaborative innovation in China's rare earth industry to a new level.

 Ao Hong stated that by strengthening independent and collaborative innovation in rare earth technology, the goal is to create a new development model of "rare earth + strategic emerging industries," open up new avenues, foster new drivers, and build new advantages. This aims to transform more rare earth scientific and technological achievements into new quality productive forces, leading the transformation and upgrading of China's rare earth industry and accelerating the high-quality development of strategic emerging and future industries.