In this Chinese new release in mid-2022, they proposed technology developed by Chinese scientists that offers a greener REE mining alternative for the industry. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry proposed a new approach in the journal Nature Sustainability earlier this month, showing that employing electrokinetic mining techniques to extract REEs from weathering crusts can be both clean and economical.
A rare-earth mine in Baoshan, Southwest China's Yunnan Province
In this approach, researchers generated an electric field by putting electrodes on the top and bottom of a volume of soil. Electrokinetic effects can accelerate the migration of REEs, reducing the need for harmful chemical agents.
To evaluate the feasibility of the new method, they carried out several experiments of different scales. Results suggested that the new method outperformed traditional mining techniques. For instance, the scaled-up experiments achieved a recovery efficiency of 96 percent within 67 hours by using electrokinetics, while that using the conventional technique was only 62 percent at 130 hours.
The difference between the impact of the old and the new approach was even more significant in an on-site field test: using electrokinetics can achieve a recovery efficiency higher than 90 percent, an 80 percent decrease in polluting agent usage and a 70 percent reduction in metallic impurities.
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
