A solid-state “atomic channel” for separating rare earth elements

hckrnws

A solid-state “atomic channel” for separating rare earth elements

(pme.uchicago.edu)

by MarcoDewey

Animats
211d
Nice. Here's MP Minerals' plant for doing that, in Alliance, TX.[1] It's a modest sized plant in an industrial park. It's fed by a huge mine in California, which has an onsite beneficiation plant. Beneficiation is the first step of separation - sorting the good stuff out from the unwanted dirt, with rock crushers, screens, and flotation. This being "rare" earth mining, the amount of good stuff is tiny relative to the unwanted dirt. This new technology works on the separated good stuff.
Although these separation plants aren't big compared to mines, US mines had been sending rare earth ores to China for processing. That's gradually moving back to the US as more separating plants are built.
[1] https://vimeo.com/1062796280/dc953ac6d5?
1. pfdietz
  21d
  Is that mine in California the one powered by burning sulfur? If I recall correctly, they need sulfuric acid to extract the minerals, and they need power, and burning sulfur to make sulfuric acid produces steam, and sulfur is easier to ship than the acid, so...
  1. pfdietz
    114h
    (I could be confusing this with a hard rock lithium mine.)
    pfdietz
    013h
    Yes: the planned Thacker Pass Lithium Mine in Nevada.
2. merek
  41d
  What's the general process for the initial separation of unwanted dirt? I've worked in a zinc smelter a long time ago, the initial stage was roasting, heating the ore to 900C to burn off unwanted components (such as sulfur, which went on to become sulfuric acid), and to melt other components.
  I guess I'm surprised at the absence of flue stacks and cooling towers at the facility shown in the video.
  Perhaps the facility in the video only shows "cleaner" downstream processing for marketing appeal, or separation processes are fundamentally different?
  1. Animats
    31d
3. dylan604
  121d
  That's one of those corporate videos that's totally useless. Lot's of "pretty" pictures with drone footage, but there's no there there. Who do videos like this work on?
  1. defrost
    101d
    Gloss for potential investors / capital raisers wanting a bit more than the dry quarterlies and annual reports as they prep for raising 50 or a 100 million in more forward capital loans for processing expansion.
    It's literal lube for the grinding wheels of commerce.
    Some can get by on the technical reports and capex and projected returns, others want a bit of "a vision" / proof of big shed and machinery.
rpaddock
019h
"“Rare earths always come mixed together, whether they’re in an ore or in a waste stream..."
What these College level projects never address is real world experience with Thorium. "Mixed together" very often includes Thorium. So as you run your process you either leave be hid a pile of Thorium as you extract what you want, or you end up with a pile of Thorium that you extracted.
While Thorium is useful, as I'd love to have a Thorium powered pebble-bed reactor buried in my backyard to power my house, it will attract government regulators when the pile gets big enough causing no end of expansive paperwork on radiological issues.
This is why places like Coal Mines don't extract the Lithium from the Tailings. They just don't want to deal with the radiological issues.
JumpCrisscross
21d
> Chong Liu and her colleagues knew that one of the differences between rare earth ions was the size of the water shell surrounding each one when they are dissolved in solution. Lighter rare earths like lanthanum have larger first water shell, while heavier rare earths like dysprosium have a smaller first shell. Taking advantage of that size difference, Chong Liu’s group engineered manganese oxide so that the gaps between its stacked layers were only a few water molecules wide. Then, they squeezed raw mixtures of rare earth elements inside.
Cool! Does this only work with a mixture of mostly rare earths, or can ores be "squeezed...inside"? Also, is the end product metal or intercalated manganese oxide?
1. gilleain
  11d
minimaltom
01d
This seems very similar to the ion-exchange membrane rowow et all have been refining on youtube over the last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luulTI1RKHE&t=114s. Rowow himself has videos on using electrochemistry to extract rare elements from mining waste.
chasil
01d
It appears to me that the "water envelope" refers to chemical hydrates of water.
So the nanostructures allow a maximum size of hydrates.
How is this flushed after collection? What impels the captured molecules out of their recesses?
ycui7
01d
and it was created by Chinese born Professor and Student.
EA-3167
01d
Very interesting, even if it is at an early stage and I have to wonder what the throughput would look like in an industrial process. There's value in proving that this approach can work even if it doesn't become the basis for separation plants in the future.