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2015 Fall.Includes color illustrations, color map.Includes bibliographical references.The increasing demand for the rare earth elements (REEs) is driven by new technologies, including computers, automobiles and other advanced technology... more
2015 Fall.Includes color illustrations, color map.Includes bibliographical references.The increasing demand for the rare earth elements (REEs) is driven by new technologies, including computers, automobiles and other advanced technology applications. Currently, bastnasesite, monazite and xenotime are three major commercial rare earth minerals throughout the world. China is the biggest rare earth producer, however, because of the restriction of Chinese rare earth export, the rest of the world has been to develop proper rare earth resources to replace supply from China. Ancylite, a rare earth strontium carbonate, is a potentially commercial rare earth mineral. In this research, the materials obtained from Bear Lodge, Rare Earth Resources, Ltd., were investigated to develop a proper procedure to efficiently separate rare earth minerals from their gangue minerals. Mineralogical characterization shows that ancylite is the dominant rare earth mineral, and calcite is the major gangue miner...
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Research Interests: Metal and Rare Earth
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Research Interests: Geology and Rare Earth
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Bastnaesite is an important mineral because of its abundance and rare earth content. Calcite and barite are the most common gangue minerals associated with bastnaesite. The importance of finding a suitable collector that can be selective... more
Bastnaesite is an important mineral because of its abundance and rare earth content. Calcite and barite are the most common gangue minerals associated with bastnaesite. The importance of finding a suitable collector that can be selective against the gangue minerals without heated conditioning is critical to the advancement of the beneficiation of bastnaesite. This review will present some previous research that has been done on bastnaesite flotation and a comparison of new collectors used.
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... Concentrates with Nitrogen Species Catalyzed Pressure Leaching, Solvent Extraction and Electrowinning ... HBM&S Zinc Pressure Leach Plant, Zinc and Lead Processing, ed. JE ... Optimizing the NITROX PROCESS Through Elemental... more
... Concentrates with Nitrogen Species Catalyzed Pressure Leaching, Solvent Extraction and Electrowinning ... HBM&S Zinc Pressure Leach Plant, Zinc and Lead Processing, ed. JE ... Optimizing the NITROX PROCESS Through Elemental Sulphur Formation, Precious Metals 1989,ed ...
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Abstract Recently, leaching of gold with cyanide has come under scrutiny for its possible detrimental effects to the environment. Also, in some gold bearing ores and concentrates, conventional cyanide leaching is not the best method for... more
Abstract Recently, leaching of gold with cyanide has come under scrutiny for its possible detrimental effects to the environment. Also, in some gold bearing ores and concentrates, conventional cyanide leaching is not the best method for gold extraction. This is due to gold particle encapsulation, cyanicides or pregrobbing carbon such as found in refractory ores and concentrates. Hence, there is much interest in developing an alternative way to extract gold from ore. Possible benefits of leaching gold with something other than cyanide include easier processing of refractory ore bodies including: carbonaceous, cyanicides, and sulfides, cheaper reagent and operating costs and opening of mine properties in places where cyanide use has been limited by the law. Hence, this paper details the fundamentals and development of the Alkaline Sulfide Gold Leaching system.
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Research Interests: Chemistry, Kinetics, Hydrometallurgy, Copper, Nitrite, and 4 moreDissolution, Chalcopyrite, Sulfur, and Sulfuric Acid
A new process for smelting copper, Looping Sulfide OxidationTM (LSOTM) significantly and positively alters the smelting energy balance. This process uses copper oxide in conjunction with air for the desulfurization of copper and... more
A new process for smelting copper, Looping Sulfide OxidationTM (LSOTM) significantly and positively alters the smelting energy balance. This process uses copper oxide in conjunction with air for the desulfurization of copper and chalcopyrite concentrates. Copper oxide is regenerated in a flash type furnace and then “looped” back for the oxidation of the copper concentrate. Heat and material balances show that the Looping Sulfide OxidationTM process requires significantly lower net energy than conventional technology. This process produces anode copper and higher SO2 content off-gases for efficient formation of sulfuric acid. Additionally, the process yields slags with lower copper solubility as compared to the conventional technology.
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Chemical and mineralogical characterization of Malaysian monazite, a phosphate mineral, bearing rare earth elements separated from the tin tailings originated from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, was performed in this paper. The study aims to... more
Chemical and mineralogical characterization of Malaysian monazite, a phosphate mineral, bearing rare earth elements separated from the tin tailings originated from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, was performed in this paper. The study aims to collect detailed information on the chemical composition, crystal phases, and microstructure of the mineral monazite concentrate that would aid to optimize the subsequent hydrometallurgical processes for high-efficient separation of thorium and other associated rare earth elements. A systematic characterization study of the concentrate was conducted using techniques such as optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). These techniques analyzed the morphological details on the surface, elemental analysis, and mineral association assessment and identified the surface functionalization groups. The bulk composition and the mineral phases in which the elements are present were studied by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies respectively. The XRF analysis confirmed the presence of Ce, La, Nd, Pr, and Y (rare earth oxides: REO’s ~ 60 wt.%) while thorium dioxide (ThO 2 ) accounted for 7 wt.% of the total composition. Traces of Ca, K, Al, Fe, Ti, and Mn were also confirmed by SEM elemental mapping. The XRD results confirmed that the concentrate was primarily composed of monazite (Ce, La, Nd, Th (PO 4 )) along with minor impurity phases of quartz. Automated mineralogical analysis was used as a confirmatory tool to corroborate the preliminary evidences. Based on the particle size distribution analysis supported by SEM, the majority of monazite grains were found to be present in the size range of 170–210 μm. Strong bands of PO 4 and SiO 4 were observed in the IR spectra corresponding to the phospho-silicate matrix of the REE mineral.
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Laboratory testing, plant optimization, and the interpretation and application of metallurgical technologies can be tedious, time consuming, and costly. This paper outlines the use of proven statistical design-of-experimentation software... more
Laboratory testing, plant optimization, and the interpretation and application of metallurgical technologies can be tedious, time consuming, and costly. This paper outlines the use of proven statistical design-of-experimentation software for rapid laboratory testing and optimization of mineral processing of cobaltite ore with limited representative sample utilization.
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Rapid technological development has caused an increase in the demand for rare earths. Ancylite, a strontium rare earth carbonate, is a potentially significant source of rare earths. In this research paper, essential aspects of the... more
Rapid technological development has caused an increase in the demand for rare earths. Ancylite, a strontium rare earth carbonate, is a potentially significant source of rare earths. In this research paper, essential aspects of the magnetic separation and flotation processes for Bear Lodge ore are presented. A flowsheet is proposed based on an optimization of the variables and flotation simulation. The economic feasibility of the proposed processing operation is analyzed.
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Solvent extraction and precipitation schemes are applied to isolate copper, cobalt, manganese and nickel from leachate, produced from spent lithium-ion battery leaching using tannic acid-acetic acid as lixiviant. The metal separation and... more
Solvent extraction and precipitation schemes are applied to isolate copper, cobalt, manganese and nickel from leachate, produced from spent lithium-ion battery leaching using tannic acid-acetic acid as lixiviant. The metal separation and purification were developed based on a ketoxime (LIX® 84-I) and a phosphinic acid (Cyanex® 272) extraction system. Aside from the leachate’s initial pH, which dictates the metal isolation flowsheet, other parameters affecting metal extraction rate, such as phase ratio, extractant concentration, and acid stripping will be evaluated. Copper was selectively removed from leachate at pH 3, using LIX® 84-I 10% v/v followed by cobalt and manganese co-extraction from the raffinate using Cyanex® 272 10% v/v at pH 5. After both metals were stripped using sulfuric acid 0.2 M, manganese was quantitatively precipitated out from the strip solution using potassium permanganate or sodium hypochlorite. Nickel was isolated using LIX® 84-I from raffinate at pH 5, prod...