Recovery of Rare Earth Elements Adsorbed on Clay Minerals from a Chilean Deposit by Ion Exchange Arturo Albornoz, Arturo rock and Enrique De la Barra (*) Minera Biolantánidos, Chile ABSTRACT During the past twenty years, there has been an explosion in demand for many items that require rare earth metals due to the fact that these strategic elements are mostly associated with the hitech industry. It is well known that world production of rare earth elements (REE) is dominated by China, however this work that is being develop by a 3-years-old-Chilean project, aims to change this situation in a mid-long term. The BioLantánidos project is located in the VIII region of Chile named Bio-Bio and owns more than 130,000 hectares of mining rights for exploration and operation of future mines. The Project is centered on the Penco’s Ion-Clay bed, which hosts one of the world’s unique Weathered Ion Clays deposits, and with its surrounded areas it has 18,000 hectares for exploration and minning. The resource of biolantanidos project is 250 Mt with an average grade of 300 ppm of rare earth oxide (REO). Laboratory tests confirmed a recovery of about 90% of rare earths (REE). Minera Biolantánidos is working on the construction of a pilot plant considering a Chilean approach that was designed by a multidisciplinary group. Their main stages are ion exchange, solid-liquid separation, precipitation and roasting. The main objective of this pilot plant is to prove that a new Chilean technology (Close Continuous Leaching Process, CCLP) is suitable for the safety extraction of REE from clay minerals. The project plan includes a production of 2 t/a of REO. If it is so, a commercial plant will be made in order to obtain this product in a big scale with a production of 252 t/a of REO. KEYWORDS Weathered Ion Clays deposits, solid-liquid separation, new Chilean technology, Minera Biolantanidos, safety.