Method for optimizing liquid injection process of ionic rare earth ore

A method for optimizing a liquid injection process of ionic rare earth ore, comprising the following steps of:

• step 1:
• testing the hydraulic properties of an ore body:
• arranging a plurality of moisture sensors within the ore body, performing an in situ water injection test, analyzing moisture content data by using a hydraulic property inverse analysis method, and determining the hydraulic properties of the ore body;
• step 2:
• determining the diffusion degree of the ore body;
• step 3:
• forming prospecting holes in the ore body and sampling to determine the spatial distribution of the rare earth grade and the impurity grade of the ore body prior to leaching;
• step 4:
• establishing a mathematical model for competitive exchange of rare earth ions and impurity ions with ammonium ions, sampling in situ, performing a leaching-in-tube test, and determining model parameters of the competitive exchange of the rare earth ions and impurity ions with ammonium ions;
• step 5:
• substituting the hydraulic properties obtained in the step 1 into a mathematical equation of an existing percolation process within the ore body, determining a moisture content distribution within the ore body, substituting the obtained moisture content distribution and the diffusion degree of the ore body obtained in the step 2 into a convection-diffusion equation to obtain distribution of ions within the ore body at any time under the action of convection and diffusion, and modifying the distribution of the ions within the ore body at any time by taking into account the grade distribution of the step 3 and the competitive exchange model of the step 4) to obtain distribution of rare earth ion concentration within the ore body after completion of leaching;
• step 6:
• determining a rare earth leaching rate of the ore body according to the ion concentration distribution within the ore body before and after leaching, and varying the concentration and the dosage of an injected leaching agent to obtain a profile plot of the rare earth leaching rate as a function of the concentration and the dosage of the injected leaching agent;
• and
• step 7:
• setting a target leaching rate, determining a minimum leaching agent dosage to achieve the target leaching rate according to the profile plot obtained in the step 6, and determining the ammonium sulfate concentration according to the minimum leaching agent dosage for the purpose of optimizing the liquid injection process.