The materials bonanza

摘要

You may have read about it here. You may have read about it elsewhere. Five or so years ago, the world was on the brink of crisis, one involving a group of chemical elements known as the rare earths. With exotic names such as yttrium, europium and dysprosium, they had become essential components of our fridges, televisions and smartphones -pretty much all electrical gadgets, in fact. But China, with a near monopoly on rare earth production, was slashing exports. Demand was about to massively outstrip supply. In the end, it was a bit of a damp squib. The price of some rare earth elements did soar to a peak in 2011 - and then dropped away again almost as fast.