How environmental regulation affects China's rare earth export?

Application of Molecular Imprinting for Creation of Highly Selective Sorbents for Extraction and Separation of Rare-Earth Elements

The aim of the work is to study the effectiveness of a molecular imprinting technique application for the creation of highly selective macromolecular sorbents for selective sorption of light and heavy rare-earth metals (for example, samarium and gadolinium, respectively) with subsequent separation from each other. These sorbents seem to be promising due to the fact that only the target rare-earth metal will be sorbed owing to the fact that complementary cavities are formed during the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers. In other words, the advantage of the proposed macromolecules is the absence of accompanying sorption of metals with close chemical properties. Two types of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) were synthetized based on methacrylic acid (MAA) and 4-vinylpyridine (4VP) functional monomers. The sorption properties (extraction degree, exchange capacity) of the MIPs were studied. The impact of template removal cycle count (from 20 to 35) on the sorption effectivity was studied. Laboratory experiments on selective sorption and separation of samarium and gadolinium from a model solution were carried out.

The impact of environmental regulations on export trade at provincial level in China: evidence from panel quantile regression

Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2017, this paper constructs a quantile regression econometric model to analyze whether China's environmental regulation has an impact on export trade and to verify whether the Porter hypothesis has been valid in China in recent years. The results show that in the short term, environmental regulations have a restraining effect on export trade, while in the long run, due to the existence of innovation efficiency, environmental regulations will change from having a restraining effect to a promoting effect on export trade. Strict environmental regulations will reduce the production cost of Chinese products, further improve the export competitiveness of Chinese enterprises, and promote export trade. The empirical results verify the conclusion that the Porter hypothesis is confirmed in China. The following three suggestions are proposed for China's exports to promote the win-win of China's green development and export trade: promote the realization of international and domestic double circulation, avoid becoming "pollution shelters" and support technological innovation in environmental protection industries.