Life Cycle Impact of Rare Earth Elements

Table 4

Life cycle inventory and impact for the production of 1 kg RE oxides using price-based allocation.

RE oxide	Classification	Energy consumption		Water consumption, kL	Environmental impact
		Electricity, MJ	Heat, MJ		GHG emissions, kg CO2 eq.	Resources depletion, MJ surplus
La2O3	Light	26.13	34.39	12.82	11.16	12.52
CeO2	Light	24.12	31.74	11.83	10.30	11.56
Pr6O11	Light	190.97	251.28	93.69	81.53	91.52
Nd2O3	Light	154.78	203.67	75.94	66.09	74.18
Pm2O3	Medium	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Sm2O3	Medium	37.95	62.16	22.74	17.73	20.59
Eu2O3	Medium	3472.18	5686.98	2080.32	1622.04	1883.96
Gd2O3	Heavy	121.12	198.38	72.57	56.58	65.72
Tb4O7	Heavy	2826.83	4628.93	1718.02	1325.42	1538.92
Dy2O3	Heavy	1574.95	2578.98	957.18	738.45	857.40
Ho2O3	Heavy	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Er2O3	Heavy	124.38	203.67	75.59	58.32	67.71
Tm2O3	Heavy	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Yb2O3	Heavy	111.65	182.83	67.86	52.35	60.78
Lu2O3	Heavy	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Sc2O3	Heavy	11630.4	19044.8	7068.42	5453.15	6331.55
Y2O3	Heavy	80.77	132.26	49.09	37.87	43.97