Taiwan is planning to build its first rare earths plant. The project is being developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and the goal is for the facility to produce 500 tons of rare earth materials per year, covering about half of expected domestic demand by 2030.
ITRI President Chang Pei-jen said the plant is still in the planning stage. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2028, after which technology will continue to be refined until the planned capacity is reached. “The demand for rare earth elements in Taiwan is relatively small, but the materials are indispensable”, Chan said, as quoted by the Taipei Times and the Central News Agency.
Capacity to be increased 100-fold
The plant is planned to be built in an industrial park. This will facilitate its future transfer to a private company once the technology is developed and production reaches the necessary sustainability. Funding is to be included in the budget of the National Science and Technology Council, and measures under discussion include government price guarantees for investors.
ITRI currently has an experimental production line with a capacity of about 5 tons per year. If the new project is implemented, production will increase by about 100 times. The equipment at the institute’s headquarters in Hsinchu County is used to separate rare earth elements and convert them into metals, while the Tainan campus has machinery for making high-end magnets.
Separating rare earth elements is technically complex because they have similar properties. Developing and fine-tuning the process can involve hundreds or even thousands of steps, Chan said. ITRI has already developed technologies to produce rare earth oxides and metals with 99.9 percent purity, but industrial production must prove consistency of quality and cost-effectiveness.
Chinese restrictions accelerate project
Taiwan does not have significant domestic sources of rare earth elements and has traditionally relied on imports. In February, Economy Minister Kun Ming-sin said the government was supporting ITRI in building a pilot line that was initially intended to cover about a third of consumption. More recent estimates suggest demand could reach about 2,000 tonnes per year by 2030, leading to a target of 50 per cent local production.
The pressure on Taipei has intensified after China imposed restrictions on exports of rare-earth materials, magnets and processing technologies. Rare-earth magnets are used in motors and industrial equipment, including automated systems in semiconductor factories. Taiwan's TSMC is also exploring options for equipment that is less reliant on rare-earth components.
Sources: taipeitimes.com, focustaiwan.tw