Process mineralogy of Bayan Obo rare earth ore by MLA

Abstract

The maximum recovery of rare earth resource from the Bayan Obo ore deposit is a difficult task, especially without the sufficient data of mineralogy. In this paper the mineralogy of Bayan Obo ore deposit by comprehensively research with the application of mineral liberation analyzer (MLA) is reported. The MLA was applied to quantitatively analyze the complicated element/mineral compositions, the REE occurrence, the size distribution and the degree of liberation of the Bayan Obo ore. Mineralogical analysis of the rare earth ore has shown that REEs are present mainly as bastnaesite and monazite-(Ce) to a small extent as parisite-(Ce). 5.85% of the REEs, 34.99% of iron and 0.12% of niobium occur in the ore sample. There are 76.99% of iron occurred in hematite and the remaining iron is mainly distributed in magnetite and goethite. The degree of liberation of bastnaesite and monazite-(Ce) was 79.65% and 75.67% respectively when the grinding fineness was 83.57% passing 75 μm sieves. Un-liberated or partly liberated rare earth minerals are associated closely mainly with other rare earth minerals and gangues. These theoretical data could be employed to further comprehensively utilize the rare earth ore.