Literature Review: Rare Earths

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2 .0 LITERATURE REVIEW Rare earths are a series of chemical elements found in the Earth’s crust that are vital which containing fifteen elements of the lanthanide series as well as scandium and yttrium. The fifteen elements are Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Lutetium. These elements are divided into two sub-groups, the cerium sub-group of ‘Light’ rare earth element (LRREs) and sub-group of ‘Heavy’ (HRREs). Further detailed, ‘Light’ rare earth element (LRREs) which include Lanthanum to Europium and sub-group of ‘Heavy’ which included Gadolinium to Lutetium as well as yttrium, while Scandium not included in either the LREE or…show more content…
Centrifugal gravity concentrator is the most successful gravity separator used for fine particle size ( Falcanor,2013). 2.4 Magnetic separation of REE ore Rare earth element having a series of electron occupying 4f sub-shell which having magnetic moment among the electrons. These resulting the material having some degree of magnetism (Spedding, 1975). The basis for magnetic separation is a magnetic field that is utilized to separate minerals based on different behaviors of mineral particles. The effectiveness of magnetic separator depends on the applied magnetic field, magnetic field gradient and magnetic susceptibility of minerals( Oberteuffer, 1974) . Which can be clearly seen in the following equation : Fx = magnetic force felt by a particle (N) V = particle volume (m3) vp = dimensionless volume magnetic susceptibility of the particle Therefore, magnetic separator is useful in separation of rare earth minerals such as bastnaesite and monazite. Example Beneficiation of Chinese bastnasite rare removes Fe-bearing minerals by using magnetic separator. 2.5 Froth flotation of REE…show more content…
These extraction produce number of advantages such as ability to operate in a continuous mode, small quantity of extractant used, to employ only simple equipment and achieve high sample throughout. These advantages increase the popularity of this method. Liquid- liquid extraction normally use water-immiscible organic solvent as traditional extractant, mostly are toxic, flammable and volatile. These solvent being replaced with less noxious alternative as substitute due to high cost of disposal and responsiveness toward environment impact (Nelson, 2003 ). Ionic liquid, environmentally solvent is perfect substitution for solvent extraction with several properties to improve the extraction process, among them a excellent thermal stability, wide liquid range, the ability to solubilize wide range of solute, extraordinary degree and a near absences of vapors pressure (kubato and Goto, 20066 ; Han and Armstrong,

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