The European Commission has renewed a five-year tariff on tungsten electrodes for Chinese-made welding products, with a maximum tax rate of 63.5%, reported by the foreign news on July 29, 2019. The data source from the EU's "Official Journal of the European Union". The EU's tariffs on Chinese-made welding products were renewed. The EU renewed tariffs on tungsten electrodes for Chinese-made welding products for the second time. The European Union believes that EU producers Plansee SE and Gesellschaft fuer Wolfram Industrie mbH are “unstable” and require longer protection.

Analysis of latest tungsten market from Chinatungsten Online

Chinese tungsten prices maintained stability at the beginning of the week. The second-instance trial of Fanya case was settled last Friday on July 26, 2019. The industry was worried about stockpiles of 431.95 tons of tungsten and 29,651 tons of ammonium paratungstate(APT). So the current market pattern would remain unchanged in the short term.

Rare earth market quotation in China: domestic rare earth price

The overall performance of Chinese rare earth market was relatively flat, and the game between buyers and sellers was fierce. The enquiry has increased compared with the previous one, and the trading atmosphere has improved slightly. 

The China molybdenum prices showed an overall rise in the market on good performance of transactions. In the molybdenum concentrate market, with the increase of government supervision and the increase of overhaul of mainstream mining enterprises, the production capacity has been released slowly. Many holders said that they have sold out of stock, and prices have continued to increase slightly. 

Hong Kong media said that a team of Chinese scientists has developed a new method, which they said can greatly reduce the time to extract rare earth from ore, while reducing industrial pollution.

According to the Hong Kong "South China Morning Post" website reported on May 31, the extraction of trace metals is difficult and takes several days to complete, but researchers at a Chinese Academy of Sciences research institute in Fujian said they found a way, can reduce the refining time to a few minutes.

Sun Xiaoqi, the leader of the research team, said that this is a major progress. He said: "This may lead to a technological revolution in the rare earth industry." According to Sun Xiaoqi, the standard method for extracting rare earths from ore is to immerse them in toxic chemical solutions to separate useful elements, a process that takes a week.

However, using the new materials developed by Sun Xiaoqi's research group, useful elements can be separated at an unprecedented speed and efficiency.

According to the report, under the microscope, the new phenoxycarboxylic acid extractant contains numerous solid particles with a diameter of only a few microns. When this extractant is mixed with fine particles of rare earth ore, a process called "extraction-precipitation" begins.

Sun Xiaoqi said: "This work can be completed in 20 minutes." He said that this method can also be used to extract rare earth from mining waste rock and even obtain a certain amount of rare earth from leached waste.

Sun Xiaoqi said that the new extraction method can not only reduce pollution, but also reduce production costs.

He said: "We are making this extraction process into a large-scale application phase." According to reports, some rare earth producers have completed relevant industrial tests. There are still some problems, such as how to produce extractants on a large scale and improve existing equipment in rare earth refineries, but Sun Xiaoqi said that they have received government support.

He said: "The government attaches great importance to the rare earth industry, and our research has been supported by stable and adequate funding."

Luminescent probes are an important bio-visualization tool commonly used in many applications such as bioimaging and detection. Currently developed luminescent probes mainly include carbon nanotubes, fluorescent dyes, quantum dots and rare earth doped nanomaterials. Among them, rare earth nanomaterials have become a research hotspot due to their advantages of good light stability and low biological toxicity. However, the rare earth nanomaterials generally used have problems such as low quantum efficiency and small light absorption cross section, and the research on the regulation of their properties is at an exploratory stage.

Under the support of the national key research and development program “Nano Technology”, Professor Li Fuyou's research team at Fudan University has developed a class of nanoprobes with the same excitation and emission wavelengths and long luminescence lifetime, with rare earth elements Yb, Er, Tm, Nd. Etc. as the main doping element has a unique zero Stokes displacement photoluminescence. Such a probe is like a short-lived memory that continuously produces the same illuminating signal as the wavelength of the excitation light for a period of time after excitation. Although the traditional wavelength-based luminescence detection method cannot fully study the luminescence phenomenon, researchers have developed a new signal collection method by using the characteristics of this type of probe with longer luminescence lifetime, by controlling the illuminating collection window. After the pulse excitation, the excitation light is filtered out in the time domain to maximize the luminescence signal of such probes. For example, small-sized nanoparticles (~15 nm) with Yb as the main doping element have an emission intensity advantage of more than an order of magnitude compared to other commonly used luminescent materials. By adjusting the thickness of the shell in the core-shell structure, the luminescence lifetime of the material can be significantly adjusted.

In view of the unique properties of this type of material, the researchers developed it into a time-domain fluorescence imaging method for multi-channel decoding and live tracing in the time domain, and clinical applications such as passive targeting of tumors, showing broad application prospects.

a “Zero Stokes Displacement” photoluminescence probe design; b time domain filter and other fluorescence detection methods

China exported only 3,966 tons of rare earths in June, down 26.8% year-on-year, which means that the structural changes in China's rare earth industry are still continuing, and the supply and demand situation of the rare earth market will also change. At the same time, Australia is trying to win more shares in the rare earth supply market.

In May of this year, Australian supplier Lynas reported the news of a rare earth separation plant with the US company Blue Line. Lynas is one of the few light rare earth producers outside of Chinese companies.

According to informed sources, Lynas intends to become the only large-scale medium and heavy rare earth producer outside the Chinese company by setting up a joint venture separation plant, and will expand the production scale of light rare earth products in the next few years.

However, it is worth noting that although Lynas is trying to expand its rare earth business, its original business progress has stalled. It is reported that Lynas will export the extracted radioactive waste to a processing plant in Malaysia for processing. The resulting 500,000 tons of waste will have a significant impact on the local groundwater and environment in Malaysia.

According to this month's news, Lynas's processing plant in Malaysia received complaints from a total of 88 local environmental organizations, and these organizations require Lynas to close the processing plant. Coupled with the review initiated by Malaysia, Lynas shares have fallen nearly 18%.

Rare earth energy-storing “Luminous Road” is about to be put into use in Hainan recently, and it has caused widespread concern by crowd people. The reporter of the Southern Metropolis Daily contacted the relevant departments to visit the first self-illuminated road in Chengmai County, Jinjiang Town, Hainan City, together with the project owner responsible for the “Glowing Road”. Demystifying the mystery of the self-illuminating road.

A Past tungsten mine area – Instagram’s famous Monte Neme lake recently attached highly attention on the website. During the same time that a turquoise but toxic lake near the Russian city of Novosibirsk is making international headlines as the “Siberian Maldives,” this similarly dangerous attraction is gaining notoriety in Spain.

Analysis of latest tungsten market from Chinatungsten Online

The tungsten prices in China maintained stability in the week ended on Friday July 26, 2019 on deadlocked supply and demand. The strong rised mentality in the raw material side supported the current transaction prices but weak demand also weakened confidence in the spot market.