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Cheap Lightweight Speakers On The Way?

Phil Starr

By Phil Starr,
in Amps and Cabs

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Phil Starr Grand Master

Phil Starr

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OK I know some of you think that neodymium is the devil's magnetic but really it's just a way of making more powerful magnets or the same magnets in a smaller lighter way. Until a few years ago lightweight speakers were falling in price and becoming more and more common then the Chinese who produced most of the neodymium started an evil plan to build windmills and electric cars and cornered the market for the neo they were in fairness producing. Other countries have now opened their own mines and the neo availability has eased but neo speakers are still frighteningly expensive. A few years ago I bought a Deltalite for £66 it is now £200, almost as good as Bitcoin :)

 

Now I picked up in New Scientist that a new technique for extracting Rare Earth Elements including neo from industrial waste has been developed which may have solved the speaker magnet problem. To be fair it may also save us from global warming through all those windmills and energy efficient motors but I digress.

 

Basically the technique is to release all the REE's including neo by electrically sintering industrial waste from power stations and mining. The ash from power stations produced each year contains around 3.75 million tonnes of Rare Earths and the most recent figure I could find for REE consumption was 19,000tonnes in 2018. The new extraction process cuts the cost of extraction by 90% compared with conventional mining.

 

So there you go, it's profitable, cuts our need to r*pe the planet with mines and potentially brings down the cost and availability problems of speaker magnets (and windmills) 

 

Rare  earth metals are also used in the manufacture of electronics so expect even more of the devil's amplification. It's no accident we call it class D.

 

PS I read this so you don't have to  Rare earth elements from waste https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm3132

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Bill Fitzmaurice Veteran

Bill Fitzmaurice

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Despite the rare earth name neodymium isn't rare and it isn't all that difficult to refine. China is the main producer, for the same reasons China is the main producer of just about everything. The Chinese decided to take advantage of their near monopoly and jacked up the price. In response other countries have ramped up their mining and refining. The US is predicted to exceed Chinese production within the decade, while Australia, India and even Greenland are stepping up production. As for its use in the loudspeaker industry, that's a mere drop in the bucket. The main consumers are the auto industry for use in motors for electric vehicles, and the wind power electric generation industry for use in generators.

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Downunderwonder Grand Master

Downunderwonder

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Some NZ boffins have come up with a way to extract Lithium from the volcanic bore water used in geothermal electric plants. The gummint has taken a 20% stake to give them the capital to scale it into production.

 

They already have a plant extracting useful amounts of silica for export. I wonder if there's any neodymium going to waste.

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Phil Starr Grand Master

Phil Starr

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Whilst it is true that neodymium isn't particularly rare it is still in short supply, some of the other rare earths are in even shorter supply and a few used in computer chips are becoming a problem. Although the chemistry of acid leaching used to extract them isn't particularly sophisticated it's a highly polluting process. The 'ores' used in refining REE's have very low proportions of RE's so a lot of mining has to be done and almost all of this becomes acid polluted waste. Fly ash from power stations actually has a better proportion of REE's and is a waste product from mining that is already taking place. The electrical sintering process breaks up the crystalline structures of  the ash and releases more of the neodymium so the process is several times more efficient. Reducing the cost of production by 90% and the increase in availability is going to reduce the price of anything that uses neodymium and that means renewable energy production. The extraction technique can also be used on mined ores and the waste products of aluminium production which is good because fly ash is the by-product of coal fired power stations which we all hope are on the way out.

 

All of this is still in development, in the USA mainly and will take years to become significant but for those of us watching the increased availability of REE's with reduced environmental costs has to be good news and lord knows we need some now.

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agedhorse Mentor

agedhorse

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There is almost no rare earth elements that are used for magnetic structures also found in other electronics (including semiconductors). 

 

The rare earth elements that are used for speaker magnets are also used in all kinds of motors, generators and actuators. These devices are found throughout industry, transportation and also within electronic products (such as vibrator motors, haptic actuators, etc.).

 

The speaker industry competes directly with these other heavy hitting players in sourcing the material.

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Phil Starr Grand Master

Phil Starr

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I hadn't meant to get into a lengthy debate about rare earth metals and I think my sense of humour may have rather obscured what I wanted to say which was essentially that I think the world of mass produced speakers is going to change over the next few years as the production bottleneck which pushed up the price of neodymium is resolved and that new technology will bring the price down. I also wanted to alert people to the environmental significance of a new refining technique which will reduce pollution, energy costs and the need for more mining. I'm one of those very odd people who read academic papers for fun and I thought I'd come across something of wider interest which I've linked to in the OP

 

Obviously the people reading on BassChat  have a special interest in speakers but I didn't seriously think they'd miss the reference to electicity generation and electric motors or the implications for climate change reduction. I suppose the 'cheap speakers' was really a bit of clickbait. Sorry :)

 

It is quite right that REE's aren't really that rare in the earths rocks, rare earth is just the mane the early chemists gave them. Even the rarest are more abundant  than gold but they are more difficult to separate and refine and it is the supply that is limited. As well as magnetics they are an essential part of LED's and used to make the hard glass that make up the screens you are reading this on. They are used in fibre optics and responsible for the improvements in many battery technologies we desperately need. They are also used in the lithography we use to print semiconductor chips. 

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Balcro Proficient

Balcro

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On 23/02/2022 at 16:22, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Despite the rare earth name neodymium isn't rare and it isn't all that difficult to refine. China is the main producer, for the same reasons China is the main producer of just about everything. The Chinese decided to take advantage of their near monopoly and jacked up the price. In response other countries have ramped up their mining and refining. The US is predicted to exceed Chinese production within the decade, while Australia, India and even Greenland are stepping up production. As for its use in the loudspeaker industry, that's a mere drop in the bucket. The main consumers are the auto industry for use in motors for electric vehicles, and the wind power electric generation industry for use in generators.

So that's why Trump offered to buy Greenland from the Danes a few years back!

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Bill Fitzmaurice Veteran

Bill Fitzmaurice

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That had little to do with mineral rights, which American and other companies can and do get from the Greenlandics. It had to do with the Northwest Passage. Thanks to the global warming that Trump labels as a hoax it's gone from 19th Century fantasy to 21st Century reality.  In theory whoever controls the sea lanes within Greenland's territorial waters would have a strategic and economic advantage as more and more commerce goes through those waters from Asia to Europe. As usual Trump didn't think it through. It never occurred to him that the inhabitants of Greenland wouldn't go for it, even if the Danes did. If there's a change from the status quo for Greenland, currently an semi-autonomous possession, it will be to full fledged nationhood. It wasn't the most harebrained idea Trump ever had, but that list is a very long one.

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