Research Status of Rare Earth Recovery from Sedimentary Rare Earth Ore and Discussion on Beneficiation Test in Northwest Guizhou

The rare earth mineral resource occurring in kaolinite clay rocks in northwest Guizhou is a new type of rare earth mineral resources, which belongs to the brand-new "sedimentary rare earth ore". The average thickness of the rare earth deposit is 5.07 m with good continuity. The average grade of rare earth oxides is 0.26%, the highest is 1.6%, and the content of key rare earth elements such as praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium is high, and the associated valuable elements such as niobium, gallium, zirconium and scandium are high, which has great development and utilization value. At present, the research on beneficiation of this new rare earth mineral resource is not much. This paper carried out process mineralogical research on this type of rare earth ore and found that the rare earth ore has no independent carrier minerals and the particle size of the ore is very fine. Beneficiation exploration experiment failed to achieve effective enrichment of the rare earth minerals through physical beneficiation, which confirmed the conclusion of process mineralogy research.