Highlights

• Chenguang Rare Earths wins Grand Prize for breakthrough in rare earth metal smelting process control technology.
• Project introduces digital monitoring and automated systems that increase plant capacity by 50% and labor productivity by 80%.
• Technological innovation potentially reinforces China's competitive edge in rare earth metals production and supply chain.

The Jiangxi Provincial People’s Government announced that Chenguang Rare Earths’ project, “Key Technologies and Applications for Integrated, Collaborative Control Across the Full Process of Rare-Earth Smelting,” has received the Grand Prize (Technological Invention) in the 2024 Jiangxi Science & Technology Awards. Provincial authorities and company media describe the honor as a milestone, noting it ends a more than two-decade gap since this top award class was last conferred in the category.

The news was reported (opens in a new tab) by Shenghe Resources.

What’s new: The project targets chronic pain points in pyrometallurgical (metal) rare-earth smelting, especially molten-salt electrolysis—the core step for producing metals used in NdFeB magnets and other advanced materials. Chenguang says it replaced “knob-turning without records” with real-time digital monitoring (current, voltage, temperature), non-contact IR thermometry for precise temperature control, an intelligent feed system, and a one-button automated tapping machine—packaged as a single, integrated process-control solution.

Results reported: After scaled deployment in the company’s Metals Division, Chenguang reports: total plant capacity +50%, per-furnace throughput +46%, labor productivity +80%, and energy consumption −6.8%. The firm frames this as both an economic win and a step toward lower-energy, lower-emission, higher-efficiency operations.

Why it matters to U.S. and Western markets

This is a factory-floor digitalization and automation play in China’s rare-earth metals, where cost, yield, and quality stability drive competitiveness. If widely adopted across China’s smelting base, such controls could lower unit costs, tighten process consistency, and expand output for heavy and light RE metals (e.g., Nd, Pr, Dy, Tb). That, in turn, could pressure Western cost curves, complicate efforts to reshore or friend-shore REE metal production, and raise the bar for U.S./EU plants on process data capture, automation, and energy intensity. Could this award be part of a confluence of forces, noting not only official validation but also potential policy tailwinds that may speed industrial roll-out inside China?

Bottom line: This is not just a trophy. It’s a manufacturing-technology upgrade—data-rich, automated, and already at scale—that could reinforce China’s mid-stream metals edge in the rare-earth supply chain.

Disclaimer: This item originates from media associated with a state-owned entity. Key claims should be verified by independent sources.

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