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Published in:
The Rare Earth Elements—A Special Group of Metals Read chapter Read first chapter

2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy of the Rare Earths

Author : J. H. L. Voncken

Published in: The Rare Earth Elements

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter is about mineral processing of the rare earths (making the mined ore into a concentrate of the valuable minerals), and extractive metallurgy of the rare earths (how to get the metals out of the concentrate). The mineral processing of three well-known exploited ore deposits is discussed in more detail.

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previous chapter Physical and Chemical Properties of the Rare Earths
next chapter Applications of the Rare Earths
Footnotes
1
Country rocks are the rocks around the ore deposit. They consist of non-valuable material.
 
2
Comminution means crushing or pulverization.
 
3
Run of mine is the raw product that comes from the mine. This may be material like the ore fragment on the left in Fig. 4.2.
 
4
Gangue: this is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a desired mineral in an ore deposit. For instance in so-called Banded Iron Ore, the iron-ore minerals are magnetite (Fe3O4) and hematite (Fe2O3), and the gangue is quartz (SiO2). Gangue should not be confused with overburden, which is the material that covers a deposit.
 
5
Desliming is the removal of the finest fraction, which often may cause difficulties in later processing stages.
 
6
Leucoxene: an alteration product and mixture of Fe-Ti oxides, including titanite, perovskite, titanian magnetite, but especially ilmenite. Most leucoxene is actually largely anatase, TiO2, or rutile, TiO2 (Mindat.org 2015). Fe occurs usually as hematite.
 
7
Solvent extraction is a separation method in which a substance is separated from one or more others using a solvent. Fundamental to the method is the variation of solubilities of different compounds in different substances.
 
8
Tributyl phosphate is an organophosphorus compound with the chemical formula (C4H9)3PO4 (Encyclopedia Britannica 2015b).
 
9
A pyrophosphate is a phosphorus oxyanion (Wikipedia 2015a).
 
10
Herbert Newby McCoy (1870–1945) was an American chemist who taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah and was the vice-president of Lindsay Light & Chemical Company. He contributed to numerous papers on physical chemistry, radioactivity and rare earths (Wikipedia 2015b).
 
11
This is an extraction technology that produces metal by reaction of one of its compounds with a metallic reducing agent through thermal methods.
 
12
Antipyrine: a white crystalline powder with the formula (CH)(CH)CHNO, which was formerly used to relieve pain and reduce fever.
 
13
EDTA is ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic-acid, ((HO2CCH2)2NCH2CH2N(CH2CO2H)2).
 
14
Definition: A zeolite mineral is a crystalline substance with a structure characterized by a framework of linked tetrahedra, each consisting of four O-atoms surrounding a cation. This framework contains open cavities in the form of channels and cages. These are usually occupied by H2O molecules and extra framework cations that are commonly exchangeable. The channels are large enough to allow the passage of guest species (Coombs et al. 1997).
 
15
HEDTA is hydroxyethyl-ethylene-diamine-triacetic acid.
 
Literature
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Gupta CK, Krishnamurthy N (2005) Extractive metallurgy of the rare earths. CRC Press, 484 p
Habashi F (2013) Extractive metallurgy of rare earths. Can Metall Q 52(3):224–233CrossRef
Kislik VA (2012) Solvent extraction: classical and novel approaches. Elsevier, 555 p
Lapin AV, Lyagushkin AP (2014) The kovdor apatite-francolite deposit as a prospective source of phosphate ore. Geol Ore Deposits 56(1):61–80CrossRef
Qiu LF, Kang X-H, Wang T-S (1991) A study on photochemical separation of rare earths: the separation of europium from an industrial concentrate material of samarium, europium, and gadolinium. Sep Sci Technol 28(2):199–221CrossRef
Slater MJ (1991) Principles of ion exchange. Butterworth–Heinemann Ltd., Oxford, 182 p
Spedding FH, Powell JE, Wheelwright EJ (1954) The use of copper as the retaining ion in the elution of rare earths with ammonium ethylene diamine tetra acetate solutions. J Am Chem Soc 76:2557–2560CrossRef
Wall F, Mariano AN (1996) Rare earth minerals in carbonatites: a discussion centred on the Kagankunde Carbonatite, Malawi. In: Jones AP, Wall F, Williams CT (eds) Rare earth minerals—chemistry, origin and ore deposits. The Mineralogical Society Series, vol 7. Chapman and Hall, pp 193–225
Wills BA, Napier-Munn TJ (2006) Mineral processing technology. In: An introduction to the practical aspects of ore treatment and mineral recovery, 7th edn. Elsevier—Butterworth & Heinemann, 444 p
Zagorodni A (2007) Ion exchange materials—properties and applications. Elsevier Ltd., 477 p
Zhang P, Kejie T, Yang Z, Yang X, Song R (2002) Rare earths, niobium and tantalum minerals in Bayan obo ore deposit and discussion on their genesis. J Rare Earths 20(2):81–86
Metadata
Title
Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy of the Rare Earths
Author
J. H. L. Voncken
Copyright Year
2016
Book
The Rare Earth Elements

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26807-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-26809-5

Copyright Year: 2016

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26809-5_4