Leaching process of rare earths from weathered crust
elution-deposited rare earth ore
elution-deposited rare earth ore
(1. School of Resources Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China;
2. Institute of Applied Chemistry, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang 330029, China;
3. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education,
Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430073, China)
2. Institute of Applied Chemistry, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang 330029, China;
3. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education,
Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430073, China)
Abstract: In order to strengthen the leaching procedure, the chemical processes of leaching rare earths (RE) from the weathered crust elution-deposited rare earth ore were investigated frow the viewpoints of kinetics, hydrodynamic and mass transfer. The results show that the leaching hydrodynamics follows the Darcy law. The leaching kinetics can be described by the shrinking core model; the leaching process is controlled by diffusion of porous solid layer; and the mass transfer can be described with Van Deemter equation. This provides a theoretic basis and a scientific approach with high efficiency and optimized extraction conditions in industrial practice.
Key words: weathered crust elution-deposited rare earth ore; leaching; hydrodynamics; kinetics; mass transfer