Heavy Rare Earth Elements: New Insight into Mineralogical Parameters That Impact Mine Processing – Year two

Current Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE) processing techniques are expensive, environmentally-challenging, and slow. Kinetic models predict that the rate of acid permeation of a mineral is the rate controlling step. Therefore, permeation rate controls the acid quantity and residency time of the mineral in the acid bath; impacting costs. Kinetic models are based on structural assumptions including the uniform distribution of elements within a mineral. This study proposes to employ atom probe tomography on the HREE-mineral gadolinite: an ore mineral in the resource at Strange Lake, Quebec. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Desmond Moser

Student:

Natalie Pietrzak-Renaud

Partner:

Juniper Associates Ltd

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

University:

Western University

Program: