No. 9 Pilot Project: XJ Rare Earths Co., Ltd in Baotou City

Ⅰ Company Profile

The company was established in 1979 and is located in the Steel and Rare Earths Industrial Park in Jiuyuan District, Baotou City. It is a science and technology development joint-stock enterprise integrating the development, application and production of rare earths as a whole.

Ⅱ Products and Process

The major products of the company are neodymium metal, praseodymium metal, dy-fe Alloy, terbium, copper-rare earth alloy and the annual output is about 2500 tons. See the production process in Figure 1.

Figure1 Production Process Flow Diagram

Ⅲ CPA Objective and Achievement Status

The cleaner production audit lasted for ten months; it started in March 2009 and ended in December 2009. The audit objective and achievement status of the cleaner production is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Audit Objective and Achievement Status

Ⅳ Cleaner Production Audit Options and Benefits

Three cleaner production options have been developed and completed during this round of cleaner production audit, and they are all none/low cost options. Besides, 4 middle/high cost options are being implemented. The major options include the recovery of imported material barrels and the improvement of rectifier controlling system, etc. Summary of the Effects of Implemented cleaner production options is shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Summary of the Effects of Implemented Cleaner Production Options