US scientists use atomic channels to purify rare earths without toxic solvents

Rare earth elements power everything from electric vehicle motors and wind turbines to MRI scanners and smartphones. However, before they can be used, nearly identical rare earth elements must be separated from one another—a process that depends on massive amounts of acids and organic solvents, making it one of the dirtiest and most expensive steps in the supply chain. “High-purity rare-earth elements are essential for modern technologies, yet current solvent extraction processes are energy-intensive and environmentally harmful because of inadequate selectivity and ligand toxicity,” the study authors note. Now, in a recent study, a team of US researchers has demonstrated a different approach. A layered manganese oxide whose nanoscale channels separate rare earth elements based on the size of the water shells surrounding them. The study suggests that carefully engineered materials could one day make rare earth refining far cleaner. Why rare earths are so difficult to separate For decades, separating rare earth elements has remained one of the biggest bottlenecks in the global supply chain. The 17 rare earth elements—including the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium—are almost always found together in nature. “Rare earths always come mixed together, whether they’re in an ore or in a waste stream, and separating them from each other is a second, very challenging step even after you’ve pulled them away from everything else,” Jiadong Liu, one of the study authors and a graduate student at UChicago, said. Previous research has explored new membranes, selective molecules, and electrochemical approaches to make the refining process cleaner, but distinguishing between elements whose properties differ by only tiny fractions has remained exceptionally difficult. Instead of designing new chemicals to recognize each element, the researchers behind the new study turned to the physical structure of a layered mineral, allowing the material itself to do much of the sorting. “This is the first time that people have used electrochemical intercalation and harnessed the structural characteristics to separate similar lanthanides, which are intrinsically very hard to separate,” Chong Liu, one of the study authors and a professor at the University of Chicago, said. A mineral with channels that do the sorting Instead of relying on organic solvents, the study authors built their approach around a layered form of manganese oxide. The material naturally forms stacks with narrow spaces, or channels, between its layers. Those spaces are only a few water molecules wide—small enough to discriminate between rare earth ions based on how they travel through water. This seemingly minor detail turns out to be crucial. Although rare earth elements behave almost identically chemically, each dissolved ion carries a shell of water molecules around it. Lighter rare earths such as lanthanum hold a slightly larger hydration shell, while heavier ones like dysprosium carry a more compact one. The difference is incredibly small, yet the researchers realized it could become meaningful if the channels inside the material were engineered with the right dimensions. When mixtures of rare earth elements were introduced into the layered manganese oxide, the heavier elements—with their smaller hydration shells—fit more comfortably inside the narrow channels and bound tightly to the material. The lighter elements, carrying bulkier water shells, pushed the layers apart as they entered. This expansion weakened their interaction with the material, naturally dividing the mixture into heavier and lighter groups without using traditional solvent extraction. Looking inside the material, atom by atom To understand exactly why the separation worked, the researchers combined experiments with advanced computer modeling. They used density functional theory, a quantum mechanical simulation technique that predicts how atoms and electrons behave, to examine the arrangement of water molecules around each rare earth ion inside the confined channels. Meanwhile, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory collected synchrotron X-ray measurements to observe the material experimentally. The remarkable agreement between the simulations and X-ray data confirmed that the tiny differences in hydration shells were driving the selective binding behavior, providing an atomic-level explanation that experiments alone could not directly reveal. The initial system successfully separated lighter rare earths from heavier ones, but many commercially important neighboring elements remained too similar to distinguish efficiently. To solve this problem, the researchers introduced magnesium ions and applied an electric current. The magnesium ions acted like microscopic braces inside the manganese oxide. Normally, when larger hydrated ions enter the layered material, they force the channels to expand. Magnesium prevented that expansion through what researchers call a ‘pinning’ effect, locking the spacing between the layers in place. “By pinning the channel so it can’t expand at all, we forced that small difference in behavior to become a much bigger difference in how strongly each element binds,” Siqi Zou, one of the study authors and a research assistant from UChicago, added. Once the channels could no longer stretch, even tiny differences in hydration size translated into much larger differences in how strongly each rare earth element attached to the material. This simple adjustment dramatically improved performance. The enrichment of neodymium over lanthanum increased from a 1.6-fold difference to 5.4-fold. After only two purification cycles, the researchers produced neodymium that was 97 percent pure. Similar gains were observed for other rare earth combinations, suggesting that controlling channel size could become a general strategy for separating elements that have long resisted efficient purification. A new design rule for separating rare earths The researchers emphasize that the technology is still at the proof-of-concept stage rather than ready for commercial rare earth refining. However, if proven successful at scale in the future, it could bring a drastic change in the rare-earth processing industry. “Right now, rare earth ores get mined all over the world, but almost all of them end up being sent overseas for processing. A method like this that just uses water and electricity instead of organic solvents is the kind of technology that could actually change how and where that processing gets done,” George Schatz, one of the study authors and a chemistry professor at Northwestern University, said. The next steps include testing the method across more lanthanide pairs, improving separation efficiency, evaluating the material’s long-term durability, and refining computational models to better understand the magnesium “pinning” mechanism. Beyond rare earth elements, the study establishes a broader design principle for ion separation. By precisely tuning nanoscale channels to exploit differences in hydration shells—differences smaller than an angstrom—similar materials could eventually be adapted for other difficult separations, including battery recycling and critical mineral recovery. The study is published in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering. Recommended ArticlesRupendra Brahambhatt is an experienced writer, researcher, journalist, and filmmaker. With a B.Sc (Hons.) in Science and PGJMC in Mass Communications, he has been actively working with some of the most innovative brands, news agencies, digital magazines, documentary filmmakers, and nonprofits from different parts of the globe. As an author, he works with a vision to bring forward the right information and encourage a constructive mindset among the masses.