Beneficiation of rare earth elements bearing ancylite
OwnerCorby G. Anderson, Hao Cuiinventors
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are methods and systems for recovery of ancylite, a rare earth mineral comprising strontium carbonate, from rare earth ore. In many embodiments, the disclosed methods and systems provide for recovery of greater than 50% of the ancylite from an ancylite containing ore. In many embodiments, the ore is subjected to flotation in the presence of an acid, for example a hydroxamic acid, such as octanohydroxamic acid. The ore may also be subjected to magnetic separation, for example wet high intensity magnetic separation.
Claims17
A method of increasing the concentration of a ancylite in an ore sample, the method comprising:
- combining the ancylite containing ore sample and a collector comprising a hydroxamic acid;
- agitating the ancylite/collector combination;
- subjecting the agitated ancylite/collector combination to flotation and floating the ancylite/collector combination to obtain a tailing sink fraction and a concentrated ancylite float fraction;
- separating the tailing fraction from the ancylite fraction, and thereby obtaining an ore sample with increased concentration of ancylite.
A method of increasing the concentration of rare ancylite in an ore sample, the method comprising:
- reducing the size of an ancylite containing ore to a particle size of less than about 100 mesh;
- passing the particles through a magnetic separator to produce an iron rich sample and an iron reduced sample;
- combining the iron reduced sample with a hydroxamic acid collector and one or more additives selected from an ionic compound, a collector, and a frother, wherein the collector includes said hydroxamic acid, to create a slurry;
- agitating the slurry;
- separating the agitated slurry by flotation into a tailing fraction and a concentrated ancylite float fraction;
- collecting the concentrate ancylite fraction to obtain a product ore sample increased concentration of ancylite.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.