The rare earth elements are a group of 17 chemical elements of the periodic table, to be precise scandium, yttrium and lanthanide. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements because they are generally found in the same mineral deposit of lanthanides and have similar chemical properties.

The application fields are different:

• superconductors
• magnets
• catalysts
• pigments
• abrasives
• lenses and optical fibers