Yttrium

Overview

Yttrium is element 39. It is not a lanthanide, but it is counted among the rare-earth elements, and grouped with the heavy rare earths, because its chemical and physical properties are so similar and it occurs in the same deposits.¹ It is relatively abundant, at about 33 parts per million of the Earth's crust.¹

Yttrium matters mostly as its oxide. Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) has long been the material of choice for the thermal barrier coatings that insulate air-cooled metal parts in gas turbines.² Ceramics and phosphors are the leading uses of yttrium both in the United States and worldwide.³

Yttrium 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

The main yttrium mineral is xenotime, which can contain up to 50% yttrium phosphate; yttrium also occurs in monazite and bastnaesite.⁶ Xenotime has been recovered as a by-product of tin placer mining.¹ Larger resources occur in placer deposits, carbonatites, uranium ores and weathered ion-adsorption clays.³ The US government records yttrium as a potential by-product or co-product of other rare earths, iron ore and heavy mineral sands such as titanium and zirconium sands.⁴

The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that 2025 world mine production of yttrium, contained in rare-earth concentrates, was 10,000 to 15,000 t of yttrium oxide (Y₂O₃) equivalent. China produced most of it and Burma a significant share; China did not publish its 2025 rare-earth mining and separation quotas.³ Yttrium reserves are not quantified. USGS does not break yttrium output down by country; the chart below shows mine production of all rare earths combined.³⁷

• 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 yttrium 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

In the United States, bastnaesite from Mountain Pass, California, contains only about 0.12% yttrium among its rare earths, and monazite concentrates with yttrium-rich xenotime are produced from heavy-mineral-sand operations in Florida. No fully commercial US facility could separate or refine yttrium in 2025.³

What it is used for

• Ceramics and coatings. Yttrium oxide stabilizes zirconia ceramics.³ A standard thermal-barrier composition is about 95.4 atomic percent zirconia and 4.6 atomic percent yttria, applied by plasma spraying or physical vapor deposition.²
• Phosphors. Yttrium, europium and terbium phosphors provide the red, green and blue in many lamps, panels and televisions.¹
• Lasers and optics. Yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) crystals are used in lasers for communication, industrial and medical applications, including metal cutting, and in white LEDs.³⁶ Smaller amounts go into fiber optics, optical glass and pigments.³
• Other uses include strengthening aluminum and magnesium alloys, microwave filters for radar, superconductors, and the radioisotope yttrium-90 for treating some cancers.⁶

Grades and forms

Yttrium is traded mainly as oxide, with metal, alloys and sputtering targets further downstream. USGS tracks oxide of at least 99.999% purity and metal of at least 99.9% purity.³ China's export licensing covers yttrium metal, alloys with aluminum, magnesium, nickel, copper and iron, targets, oxide and compounds.⁸

Trade and policy

The United States imports all of the yttrium it uses. There are no US trade codes for yttrium alone, but shipping records for 2021–24 show imports of yttrium alloys, compounds and metal from China (70%), Germany (11%), Austria (8%), the Republic of Korea (4%) and others (7%); nearly all were derived from concentrates processed in China. China exported an estimated 1,600 t (Y₂O₃ equivalent) of yttrium compounds and metal in 2025, mainly to Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Germany.³

As of December 2025 the April 2025 controls on yttrium remained in effect.³

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

Recycling and substitution

Yttrium recycling is insignificant.³ Substitutes exist for some uses but are generally much less effective, and in electronics, lasers and phosphors yttrium is generally not directly substitutable. In zirconia ceramics, calcium oxide or magnesium oxide can replace yttrium oxide as the stabilizer, but usually give lower toughness.³

Sources

1. The Rare-Earth Elements: Vital to Modern Technologies and Lifestyles (Fact Sheet 2014–3078). U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Lower-Conductivity Thermal-Barrier Coatings. NASA Technical Reports Server, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

3. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Yttrium. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

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. Yttrium: element information, properties and uses. Royal Society of Chemistry, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³

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

8. 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

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

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