The rare earth elements (REE) consist of 17 elements: Sc, Y and the lanthanoids La–Lu.

Their magnetic
and luminescent properties make them essential components of digital and low carbon technologies.
They have risen to prominence because production from mining through to manufacturing is dominated
by China, making REE the epitome of critical raw materials. The crustal abundance of light REE about the
same as copper and even the less abundant heavy REE are much more abundant than precious metal
such as gold. The most common distinction between rare-earth elements is made by atomic numbers;
those with low atomic numbers are referred to as light rare-earth elements (LREE), those with high
atomic numbers are the heavy rare-earth elements (HREE), and those that fall in between are typically
referred to as the middle rare-earth elements (MREE).Commonly, rare-earth elements with atomic
numbers 57 to 61 (lanthanum to promethium) are classified as light and those with atomic numbers 62
and greater are classified as heavy rare-earth elements.Increasing atomic numbers between light and
heavy rare-earth elements and decreasing atomic radii throughout the series causes chemical
variations.Europium is exempt of this classification as it has two valence states: Eu2+ and Eu3+.Yttrium is
grouped as heavy rare-earth element due to chemical similarities.

It turns out that many of the types of bacteria that consume methanol need
REEs, but in very low quantities. For example, most methanol-consuming
bacteria can use methanol to survive and reproduce in the presence of ~0.004
g of the REE cerium per liter—a very tiny amount. So far, there is no
experimental evidence that REEs are important for organisms like plants and
animals. However, one research group found genes for proteins that probably
associate with REEs in several different organisms, including humans [3]. This
is quite interesting, and future research will hopefully determine if REEs are
also used by non-bacterial organisms.