A review of reagents applied to rare-earth mineral flotation

Christopher Marion; Ronghao Li; Kristian E Waters

doi:10.1016/j.cis.2020.102142

A review of reagents applied to rare-earth mineral flotation

Adv Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 May:279:102142. doi: 10.1016/j.cis.2020.102142. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

Authors

Christopher Marion¹, Ronghao Li¹, Kristian E Waters²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3610 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 0C5, Canada.
² Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3610 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 0C5, Canada. Electronic address: kristian.waters@mcgill.ca.

PMID: 32244063
DOI: 10.1016/j.cis.2020.102142

Abstract

The rare-earth elements (REE), which encompass the fifteen metallic elements of the lanthanoid series of the periodic table, yttrium and occasionally scandium, have gained enormous public, economic and scientific attention in recent years. These elements, which have been found in over 250 minerals, are of high economic and strategic importance to many high-technology industries. As such they have been designated as critical materials by several countries and many new deposits are being developed. Rare-earth mineral (REM) deposits can be broadly classified into four geological environments: carbonates, alkaline/peralkaline igneous rocks, placers and ion adsorption clays. Apart from ion adsorption clay deposits, which require no mineral processing steps, froth flotation is the most applied beneficiation technique. This paper reviews the flotation of REM, covering their surface chemical properties as well as the various flotation reagents which have been employed.

Keywords: Flotation reagents; Froth flotation; Rare-earth elements; Rare-earth minerals; Surface chemistry.

Publication types

Review