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Leaching Process and Mechanism of Weathered Crust Elution-Deposited Rare Earth Ore

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Abstract

The leaching processes and mechanisms of weathered crust elution-deposited rare earth (RE) ores with ammonium sulfate were investigated for their high efficiency and low consumption exploitation. The leaching process is a typical reversible heterogeneous ion exchange reaction in liquid–solid systems. The raw ore and leached tailings were analyzed by SEM and FTIR. Results indicated that no dissolution or structural changes of the ores occurred during the leaching process. The migrations of RE3+, Al3+, and \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) in the leaching process were studied under various liquid–solid ratios. With increasing liquid–solid ratio, the content of \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) adsorbed on clay mineral by physical effect decreased, \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) adsorbed by ion-exchange increased, and the content of exchanged RE and Al increased until reaching equilibrium. The adsorption capacity of the RE ores for \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) remained about 0.61–0.63 mg/g. It was difficult to desorb \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) from RE ores with washing water alone. The leaching mechanism of Al was the same as RE, but the leaching of Al slightly lagged behind RE. At the optimal liquid–solid ratio of 0.4:1, the leaching efficiencies of RE and Al were 95.51% and 90.99%, respectively, and 56.65% of \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) remained in the leachate. After impurity removal and RE precipitation, the leachate can be reused by replenishing fresh leaching agent. The aim of this study is to enhance the leaching process of RE, restrain the leaching of impurities, and decrease the consumption of leaching agents.

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Acknowledgments

The work is financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51704339, No. 51734001, and No. 41472071) and “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities”, South-Central University for Nationalities (No. CZY19033, No. CZP19002, and No. YZZ16002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials Science, College of Resources and Environmental Science, South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, China

    Zhengyan He, Rong Zhang, Wenrui Nie, Zhigao Xu, Ming Wu & Jun Qu

  2. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, 430073, China

    Zhenyue Zhang & Ruan Chi

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  1. Zhengyan He
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  2. Rong Zhang
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  4. Zhenyue Zhang
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Correspondence to Zhigao Xu.

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Highlights

• The leaching process of RE and impurity was a typical reversible heterogeneous ion exchange reaction in liquid–solid systems.

• The leaching mechanism of Al was the same as RE, but the leaching of Al slightly lagged behind RE.

• 56.65% of \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) remaining in the leachate can be reused after impurity removal and RE precipitation.

• The residual \( {\mathrm{NH}}_4^{+} \) in RE ores was about 0.61–0.63 mg/g that was difficult to desorb for washing water.

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He, Z., Zhang, R., Nie, W. et al. Leaching Process and Mechanism of Weathered Crust Elution-Deposited Rare Earth Ore. Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration 36, 1021–1031 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42461-019-00116-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42461-019-00116-5

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