Lutetium

Overview

Lutetium is element 71, the last and heaviest of the lanthanides. It is also the least abundant of them: there is more than a hundred times as much cerium in the Earth as lutetium, although lutetium is still more common than silver, gold or the platinum metals.¹ Its average crustal concentration is about 0.8 parts per million.²

Lutetium is used in small volumes but in demanding applications: catalysts for cracking hydrocarbons, scintillator crystals in positron emission tomography (PET) scanners and, as the radioisotope lutetium-177, targeted cancer therapy.¹³ It is on the US 2025 List of Critical Minerals and falls under the heavy rare earths on the EU critical raw materials list.⁴⁵

Where it comes from

Lutetium is not mined on its own. Monazite is its main natural source, and the metal is extracted, with difficulty, by reducing the anhydrous fluoride with calcium.¹ The US government records lutetium as a potential by-product or co-product of other rare earths, iron ore and heavy mineral sands.⁴ Ion-adsorption clay deposits in southern China have been the world's main source of heavy rare earths such as lutetium.²

The US Geological Survey (USGS) does not report lutetium production by country. For all rare earths together, world mine output was an estimated 390,000 t of rare-earth oxide (REO) in 2025, and China accounted for about 270,000 t, or roughly 69%.⁶ The chart covers all rare earths, not lutetium alone.

• China270,000 t · 69%
• United States51,000 t · 13%
• Australia29,000 t · 7%
• Burma22,000 t · 6%
• Thailand4,800 t · 1%
• India2,900 t · <1%
• Madagascar2,700 t · <1%
• Russia2,600 t · <1%
• Other countries4,310 t · 1%

Covers all rare earths combined, in rare-earth-oxide terms; USGS does not publish lutetium output by country. World total is the USGS rounded figure; country figures sum to 389,310 t. USGS estimated Burma, Thailand and Madagascar from Chinese import data. Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths

Capacity to separate heavy rare earths outside China is being built but was not yet at sustained commercial scale in the United States in 2025. In October 2025 an Australian producer announced plans for a new plant in Malaysia to separate heavy rare earths including terbium, dysprosium and lutetium.⁷

What it is used for

• Catalysts. Lutetium's main commercial application has been its oxide in catalysts for cracking hydrocarbons in the petrochemical industry.¹
• PET scintillators. Lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) and its yttrium-containing variant LYSO convert the 511-keV gamma rays produced in PET scans into light. LYSO combines high density (7.1 g/cm³) with a fast scintillation decay time of about 42 ns, which reduces dead time and improves timing resolution in scanners.³
• Radiopharmaceuticals. Lutetium-177 is used in cancer therapy.¹ Its 6.7-day half-life allows it to be shipped over long distances.⁸ In July 2026 the US Food and Drug Administration approved the lutetium-177 drug Pluvicto, combined with an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor, for adults with PSMA-positive metastatic prostate cancer that is naive or sensitive to androgen-pathway therapy.⁹
• Other uses include doping gadolinium gallium garnet for magnetic bubble memory.¹

Lutetium-177 can be made in a research reactor either directly, by irradiating lutetium-176, or indirectly, by irradiating ytterbium-176, which decays to lutetium-177 and is then chemically separated as a "no-carrier-added" product.⁸ The indirect route links medical lutetium supply to enriched ytterbium as well as to lutetium.

Grades and forms

Lutetium is traded mainly as high-purity oxide; USGS tracks lutetium oxide of at least 99.99% purity.⁷ China's export licensing covers lutetium metal, lutetium-ytterbium alloy, sputtering targets, oxide and other compounds.¹⁰

Trade and policy

The United States relies on imports for all of the heavy-rare-earth compounds and metals it uses. Shipping records show that all US imports of lutetium compounds and metals in 2021–24 came from China.⁷

The November 2025 suspension did not cover the April 2025 measures. As of December 2025 the April controls on lutetium remained in effect, although China had begun issuing general licences to selected exporters.⁷

This section is factual background, not legal or trade-compliance advice.

Recycling and substitution

Only small quantities of heavy rare earths are recovered by recycling, and these come mainly from permanent magnets.⁷ Substitutes exist for some heavy-rare-earth applications but are generally less effective.⁷ In PET detectors, LYSO offers a light yield similar to that of LSO.³

Sources

1. Lutetium: element information, properties and uses. Royal Society of Chemistry, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. The Rare-Earth Elements: Vital to Modern Technologies and Lifestyles (Fact Sheet 2014–3078). U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

3. NEMA NU 2-2001 Performance Measurements of an LYSO-Based PET/CT System in 2D and 3D Acquisition Modes. Journal of Nuclear Medicine (Kemp et al., 2006), accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

5. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (Critical Raw Materials Act). EUR-Lex, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

6. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

7. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths (Heavy). U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

8. What is lutetium-177?. NRG PALLAS, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

9. FDA approves lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan with androgen receptor pathway inhibitor therapy. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

10. Announcement No. 18 of 2025 on implementing export control on some medium and heavy rare earth related items. Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

11. China Temporarily Suspends Export Controls on Key Raw Materials Including Rare Earths, Lithium Batteries, and Diamond. CIRS Group, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

12. China issues first batch of streamlined rare earth export licences, source says. Reuters via Yahoo Finance, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩