Recovery of Rare Earth Element-Bearing Placer Minerals
R. B. Rao1, B. Mishra2, D. Singh2
1Formerly CSIR-IMMT, Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar India
2Indian Rare Earths (India) Limited, Chatrapur, India
Keywords: Rare earths, monazite, zircon, process mineralogy, placer minerals, beneficiation, spiral concentrator, high tension separator, magnetic separator
Abstract
This article discusses the process flow chart for the recovery of the rare earth-bearing minerals monazite and zircon. The results of this study show that 97.9% monazite with 0.006% yield and 61.2% recovery can be achieved from a feed sample containing 0.0096% monazite by using spiral, electrostatic and magnetic separators followed by flotation. When zircon is subjected to study the process mineralogy, it is observed that a zircon grade in the feed sample containing 0.028% zircon can be upgraded to a zircon grade of 98.7% at the yield of 0.006% and the recovery of 21.5%.
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