Abstract
Purpose
Rare earth elements (REEs) are among the most critical raw materials with a high supply risk. Despite their criticality, REEs are not covered by any resource Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. The main purpose of the current study is to tackle the issue of missing characterization factors (CFs) for REEs in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
Methods
The development of resource depletion characterization factors for REEs in this study are based on two widely used resource assessment methods, Abiotic Depletion Potential (ADP) and ReCiPe. ADP is based on the use-to-stock ratio, while ReCiPe focuses on the additional cost that society has to pay as a result of extraction. To develop the CFs, a wide range of data is gathered from USGS archives and specific mining reports for 11 large deposits worldwide.
Results and discussion
The characterization factors for 15 REEs, following the ADP and ReCiPe, are provided in this article. A comparison of the developed CFs with other resources confirms their compatibility. All REE CFs, except ADP for dysprosium (among the 25% highest CFs), are placed among the highest 50 to 75% available CFs for both methods. The significant difference between the results, whether including REE CFs or not, highlights the possible misinterpretation of LCA results.
Conclusions
The results reveal that REEs have a relatively high resource impact; therefore, they should be included in the assessment of resources. In addition, applicability of the provided CFs is checked in a NdFeB permanent magnets case study, and some recommendations are provided for the practice. The proposed CFs can be used for both the further update of methods and readily implementation in main LCA software, such as Simapro and GaBi, to address the resource depletion of REEs.
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Notes
Pm and Sc are not included in this study, because Pm has no stable isotopes, and Sc is rarely available in the global trade of pure metals. Total transport of about 50 kg per year.
Compared to the set of factors, Guinée and Heijungs (1995), some elements are missed in the updated version (2002): actinium, argon, cerium, cesium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, hafnium, holmium, krypton, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, neon, polonium, praseodymium, protactinium, radium, radon, rubidium, samarium, scandium, therbium, thorium, thulium, xenon and ytterbium (Van Oers et al. 2002).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express sincere acknowledgements to Christian Traisnel and Sierra Adibi for all their valuable feedbacks.
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Responsible editor: Andrea J. Russell-Vaccari.
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Adibi, N., Lafhaj, Z. & Payet, J. New resource assessment characterization factors for rare earth elements: applied in NdFeB permanent magnet case study. Int J Life Cycle Assess 24, 712–724 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1489-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1489-x