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.