Rare earth elements: A review of applications, occurrence, exploration, analysis, recycling, and environmental impact

Rare earth elements (REE) include the lanthanide series elements (La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu) plus Sc and Y. Currently these metals have become very critical to several modern technologies ranging from cell phones and televisions to LED light bulbs and wind turbines. This article summarizes the occurrence of these metals in the Earth's crust, their mineralogy, different types of deposits both on land and oceans from the standpoint of the new data with more examples from the Indian subcontinent. In addition to their utility to understand the formation of the major Earth reservoirs, multi-faceted updates on the applications of REE in agriculture and medicine including new…