• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.421-426
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• 2001

The pneumatic classification and acidic leaching behaviors of phosphor sludge have been examined to establish the recycling system of rare earth components contained in waste fluorescent lamp. At first, separation characteristic of rare earth components and calcium phosphate in phosphor sludge was investigated by pneumatic classification. After pneumatic classification of phosphor sludge, rare earth components were leached in various acidic solutions and sodium hydroxide solution. For recovery of soluble component in leaching solution, rare earth components were separated as hydroxide and oxalate precipitations. The experimental results obtained are summarized as follows: (1) In classification process, rare earth components in phosphor sludge were concentrated to 29.3% from 13.3%, and its yield was 32.9%. (2) In leaching process, sulfuric acid solution was more effective one as a leaching solvent of rare earth component than other solutions. Y and Eu components in phosphor sludge were dissolved in sulfuric acid solution of 1.5 k㏖/㎥, and other rare earth components were rarely dissolved in leaching solution. Leaching degrees of Y and Eu were respectively 92% and 98% in the following optimum leaching conditions; sulfuric acid concentration is 1.5 k㏖/㎥ , leaching temperature 343 K, leaching time 3.6 ks and pulp concentration 30 kg/㎥. (3) Y and Eu components of phosphor sludge contained in waste fluorescent lamp were, effectively recovered by three processes of pneumatic classification, sulfuric acid leaching and oxalate precipitation methods. Their recovery was finally about 65 %, and its purity was 98.2%.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.125-132
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• 2012

The dehydration schemes of rare earth (La, Ce, Nd, Pr, Sm. Eu, Gd, Y) chloride hydrates was investigated by using a dehydration apparatus. To prevent the formation of the rare earth oxychlorides, the operation temperature was changed step by step ($80{\rightarrow}150{\rightarrow}230^{\circ}C$) based on the TGA (thermo-gravimetric analysis) results of the rare earth chloride hydrates. A vacuum pump and preheated Ar gas were used to effectively remove the evaporated moisture and maintain an inert condition in the dehydration apparatus. The dehydration temperature of the rare earth chloride hydrate was increased when the atomic number of the rare earth nuclide was increased. The content of the moisture in the rare earth chloride hydrate was decreased below 10% in the dehydration apparatus.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.51-60
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• 2014

In this study, the domestic supply & demand of the raw materials of 35 rare metals was analyzed categorized as four types - ores, metals, compounds and scraps. Foreign trade volumes of the raw materials of rare metals have been steadily increased, furthermore, recently trade growth rate highly exceeds GDP. The raw materials of rare metals - silicon, nickel, molybdenum, manganese, etc. - for steel industry were the most big part of the raw materials of rare metals trade, while the raw materials of rare metals for electronics industry were imported relatively small volumes less than $100 million. However systematic supply & demand management on the raw materials of rare metals for electronics industry is needed since recently growth rate per year has been remarkably high over 20%. Import volumes were about three times bigger than export scale, and most of the raw materials of rare metals were traded as a metal form.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.147-150
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• 2011

Since their discovery in the early 1980's, the market for bonded rare earth magnets has shown steady growth. Today these magnets are widely used for our daily life such as computer peripherals, automotive, consumer electronics, and office automation. However, the price increases of rare-earths started from the $2^{nd}$ half of 2010 became even worse in 2011. During $2^{nd}$ quarter of 2011, almost all of rare-earths showed unprecedented vertical price increases, and it brought significant impact to the related industry in terms of the price and supply. This will ask the fundamental change in the policy of the bonded rare earth industry to expand its market share, which has been highly dependent on the replacement of ferrite magnets via relatively higher performance compared to the price at certain applications. In order to achieve the sustainable growth of bonded rare-earth magnets in the future, it needs to change the current paradigm and setup the new business model. This article includes a brief summary of the rare earth price trend and the applications of the rare-earth bonded magnets. The efforts to improve the performance and diversify the applications for future growth have been also presented.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.345-349
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• 2019

With increasing demand for resources worldwide, Korea has been negotiating with resource-holding countries to achieve conservation of energy resources. Among them, Russia is the third largest resource-producing and exporting nation in the world and has several resource materials such as nickel, platinum group metals, gold, and other reserves. As a result, there is growing interest in cooperation between Korea and Russia. The aim of this article is to summarize the current status of market flow of Russian energy resources as well as Russia's economic cooperation with Korea. Notably, South Korea needs to focus on investing in overseas mines for a stable supply of rare metals. Nevertheless, securing rare metals is a major task by understanding the flow and policy direction of Russian material mines.

• BMB Reports
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.270-275
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• 2013

It is essential to analyze rare mutations in many fields of biomedical research. However, the detection of rare mutations is usually failed due to the interference of predominant wild-type DNA surrounded. Herein we describe a sensitive and facile method of detecting rare point mutation on the basis of allele-specific amplification in emulsion PCR. The identification and selective amplification of rare mutation are accomplished in one-pot reaction. The allele-specific primers coupled on magnetic beads allow the exclusive amplification and enrichment of the mutant amplicons. The productive beads bearing mutant amplicons are subsequently stained with the fluorescent dyes. Thus, the rare point mutations with a percentage as low as 0.1%, can be detected by fluorescent analysis. The relative percentages of mutation among different samples can be roughly accessed by counting the fraction of fluorescent positive beads through flow cytometry.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.10-15
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• 2003

In this study, the separation of rare earths and aluminium from the dried powder of waste cerium polishing slurry was investigated. Since cerium oxide, 40％ of rare earths, is the most stable state in rare earth, the dissolution of cerium oxide in acid solution is not easy. Therefore the dissolution process of cerium oxide by sulfation was examined in order to increase the recovery of rare earth. The rare earths could be separated from aluminum by double salt precipitation using sodium sulfate.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.188-193
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• 2012

Permanent magnet is one of the most important parts in modern industry and the rare earth elements play an essential role for operation of permanent magnet. As is well known, the rare earth elements are mostly produced in China and the world is now facing serious problems owing to supply and demand imbalances. Many attempts have been performed to replace these rare-earth based permanent magnets by rare-earth free magnets, but they have not been successful so far. Regarding this issue, we discuss about an exchange spring magnet as a potential rare earth free permanent magnet structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.915-922
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• 2018

Metallic fuel has been considered for sodium-cooled fast reactors because it can maximize the uranium resources. It generates rare earth elements as fission products, where it is reported by aggravating the fuel-cladding chemical interaction at the operating temperature. Rare earth elements form a multicomponent alloy (Ce-Nd-Pr-La-Sm-etc.) during reactor operation, where it shows a higher reaction thickness than a single element. Experiments have been carried out by simplifying multicomponent alloys for mono or binary systems because complex alloys have difficulty in the analysis. In previous experiments, xCe-yNd was fabricated with two elements, Ce and Nd, which have a major effect on the fuel-cladding chemical interaction, and the thickness of the reaction layer reached maximum when the rare earth elements ratio was 1:1. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect and relationship of rare earth elements on such synergistic behavior. Single and binary rare earth model alloys were prepared by selecting five rare earth elements (Ce, Nd, Pr, La, and Sm). In the single system, Nd and Pr behaviors were close to diffusion, and Ce showed a eutectic reaction. In the binary system, Ce and Sm further increased the reaction layer, and La showed a non-synergy effect.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2023

Rare diseases, even though defined as fewer than 20,000 in South Korea, with over 8,000 rare Mendelian disorders having been identified, they collectively impact 6-8% of the global population. Many of the rare diseases pose significant challenges to patients, patients' families, and the healthcare system. The diagnostic journey for rare disease patients is often lengthy and arduous, hampered by the genetic diversity and phenotypic complexity of these conditions. With the advent of next-generation sequencing technology and clinical implementation of exome sequencing (ES) and genome sequencing (GS), the diagnostic rate for rare diseases is 25-50% depending on the disease category. It is also allowing more rapid new gene-disease association discovery and equipping us to practice precision medicine by offering tailored medical management plans, early intervention, family planning options. However, a substantial number of patients remain undiagnosed, and it could be due to several factors. Some may not have genetic disorders. Some may have disease-causing variants that are not detectable or interpretable by ES and GS. It's also possible that some patient might have a disease-causing variant in a gene that hasn't yet been linked to a disease. For patients who remain undiagnosed, reanalysis of existing data has shown promises in providing new molecular diagnoses achieved by new gene-disease associations, new variant discovery, and variant reclassification, leading to a 5-10% increase in the diagnostic rate. More advanced approach such as long-read sequencing, transcriptome sequencing and integration of multi-omics data may provide potential values in uncovering elusive genetic causes.