Neodymium (Nd) is a "magnet rare earth" that is usually recovered as part of a light rare earth basket (Nd, Pr, La, Ce) and then pushed downstream into NdPr oxide, metal, and NdFeB magnet alloys. The part most people miss: the market is constrained far more by chemistry, separation, and finishing capacity than by digging rock out of the ground.
Ore and mineralogy
Beneficiation (make a rare earth concentrate)
Cracking and leaching (get REEs into solution)
Purification (remove impurities and manage radioactivity where relevant)
Separation (split Nd/Pr from La/Ce and from each other to spec)
Oxide finishing (Nd₂O₃ / NdPr oxide)
Metal making (Nd, Pr metals)
Alloying (Nd-Fe-B, sometimes with Dy/Tb additions)
Powder metallurgy and sintering (NdFeB magnets)
Neodymium commonly rides in bastnäsite and monazite mineral systems that are typically rich in light rare earths (including Nd), while xenotime tends to skew heavy.
Two practical implications:
Rare earth ores are low grade in the rock and the first job is to upgrade them into a mixed rare earth concentrate. Common beneficiation tools include crushing and grinding followed by separation methods like flotation, gravity, and magnetic separation, depending on mineralogy and grain size.
Why beneficiation is not "just mining":
Fine-grained bastnäsite and monazite can be difficult to concentrate cleanly, and downstream chemistry gets more expensive when the concentrate is inconsistent or impurity-heavy.
This is where rare earth projects often live or die. REE minerals do not dissolve nicely, so processors use mineral-specific cracking routes to put REEs into solution.
Technical literature and processing reviews commonly describe bastnäsite cracking via acid baking routes.
Monazite is frequently processed with caustic treatment to break down the phosphate mineral structure, followed by acid leaching to bring REEs into solution.
Why this stage dominates risk
After leaching, you do not have "neodymium." You have a pregnant leach solution containing:
Purification is about removing impurities so the separation plant can run stably. Policy and infrastructure constraints around radioactive by-products are one reason separation capacity is concentrated in only a few countries.
Rare earth separation is hard because the elements are chemically similar. The industry standard separation method remains solvent extraction (SX), run as long circuits with extraction, scrubbing, and stripping stages.
What matters specifically for neodymium:
This is also where concentration risk shows up most clearly: separation and refining are far more concentrated than mining.
A common separations endpoint is neodymium oxide (Nd₂O₃) or NdPr oxide blends (depending on customer specs and contracts).
To make magnets, you typically convert separated oxides into rare earth metals (industrial routes include electrochemical methods and metallothermic reduction pathways, depending on plant design and product slate). Reuters' "mine to magnet" overview describes oxides being converted to metals via electrolysis in industrial flows.
Neodymium metal is alloyed with iron and boron (and sometimes small Dy/Tb additions for temperature performance) to create NdFeB magnet alloy feedstock.
The neodymium value chain is full of spec cliffs:
This is why "building a mine" does not automatically create a magnet supply chain, and why downstream qualification makes switching slow.
Is the project's concentrate actually suitable for stable cracking and separation at scale?
Who is doing SX, where, and with what proven flowsheet capability?
Does the jurisdiction have the infrastructure to handle thorium/uranium by-products safely?
Can the chain deliver metal and alloy suitable for NdFeB magnets, not just mixed oxides?