Sustainable Green Production: A Review of Recent Development on Rare Earths Extraction and Separation Using Microreactors

The rapid development of microchemical technology conforms to the requirement of sustainable green development in the rare earth industry; the capacities of significant heat transfer and mass transfer have attracted extensive attention from science researchers and major enterprises. Throughout development in recent years, different types of microreactors and various mathematical models have been used to optimize the experimental results and enrich the theoretical system to form a sustainable path for the rare earth industry of that has high efficiency and low consumption and is green and safe. An effective and clean production method to separate rare earths can be revealed by the extraction mechanism and kinetic research. The application of microchemical technology to the rare earth territory can effectively resolve the common and fundamental problems of hydrometallurgical microfluid extraction, which can obtain a novel clean production process. Simultaneously, the manufacturing of microreactors combined with 3D printing and PI technology possesses better practical effects and broad prospects and have certain theoretical significances that can add practical value both in profundity and breadth.