Beneficiation of the Nechalacho rare earth deposit. Part 2: Characterisation of products from gravity and magnetic separation

摘要

The application of mineral beneficiation techniques to valuable rare earth element (REE) bearing minerals requires a significant amount of research. A previous paper (Jordens et al., 2016) described a series of physical separation processes employed to pre-concentrate rare earth minerals (REM) and reject iron oxide minerals from the Nechalacho. Deposit. In addition to grade and recovery information it is important to understand the performance of these separations from a mineralogical perspective. Information on liberation, mineral associations, magnetic properties and size-by-size recoveries can be used to further improve process designs for this deposit.