ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

The composition, chemical properties, and processing of the unique niobium–rare earth ores of the Tomtor deposit

V. I. Kuzmin, D. S. Flett, V. N. Kuzmina, A. M. Zhizhaev, N. V. Gudkova, D. V. Kuzmin, M. A. Mulagaleeva, A. V. Tolstov, and O. A. Logutenko

Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Technology SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

E-mail: kuzmin_vi@mail.ru

Abstract: The complex niobium–rare earth pyrochlore–monazite–crandallite ores of the Tomtor deposit, located in the Siberian Arctic, should be considered as a new type of rare metal materials. The major valuable components of the ore are niobium (1.63–16.4%), rare earth elements (2.2–27.8%), yttrium (0.18–2.9%), and scandium (0.015–0.15%); associated components are titanium, vanadium, aluminum, and phosphorus. Because of the irregular distribution of the rare earth metals and niobium according to grain size, the extremely finely dispersed nature of the minerals and their close interpenetration to each other, ore processing by gravitation and flotation is not successful. The processes studied for the treatment of the Tomtor ores use direct alkaline-acid leaching to open the ore. A problem in the first stage of alkaline leaching is the high aluminum content, which decreases the activity of sodium hydroxide and alkaline-earth metals, which are bound to phosphorus. Ore processing using alkaline-nitrate and alkaline-chloride leaching was proposed and investigated. The first variant was used to obtain rare earth and scandium materials and a niobium–titanium concentrate, which can be a stock material for processors who use chlorination for the processing of ores and concentrates. The second variant is a complex advanced ore processing scheme with electrochemical regeneration of the waste chloride solutions obtaining sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, and chloridizing agents. Moreover trisodium phosphate is used for purification of the waste mother liquors from metal cations. The complex salt, NaAlCl₄, is proposed as the chloridizing agent for the decomposition of the niobium–titanium concentrate. The recovery of rare earth metals in the second variant of processing is about 95%; while for niobium and titanium, this value is 92–94%.

Keywords: Tomtor ore ; NIOBIUM ; Rare earths ; Monazite processing ; Pyrochlore processing 

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-019-00695-z

Chemical Papers 73 (6) 1437–1446 (2019)