ARBOK-Finishing

Overview

ARBOK-Finishing is the stage that follows separation and turns a dry concentrate into a product a buyer accepts, on the same site. For rare earths the output is a mixed concentrate — the feed a separation cascade needs, and the material Western separation capacity is currently being built without. For the metals that permit it, the chain closes to cathode metal without leaving the site.

Applications

Finishing rare-earth concentrate recovered from acid mine drainage, phosphogypsum and alumina residue; cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, manganese, indium, gallium and lead to metal; rhenium, scandium, molybdenum, tellurium, lithium, rubidium, caesium, boron and uranium to their traded salt or oxide.

Operating Principle

Separation and product finishing are two different stages.

Separation requires no reagents: water is removed by evaporation and the dry residue parts into fractions physically, because the fractions differ in density. Where densities nearly coincide, separation by vapour at the evaporation stage is added.

Bringing a fraction to marketable form is a later stage and may use a reagent. The difference from the classical route is where the chemistry sits: there it sits at the input, and without a reagent no recovery happens at all; here it sits at the output, and only where it raises the price of what leaves the site.

Reduction to metal follows two different paths. Aqueous electrowinning is standard, scales by cell count and fits a container. High-temperature reduction requires a furnace, does not fit a container, and that material is handed to an existing processor as a salt or oxide of known composition.

Separation of individual rare-earth elements is not performed. The cascade of hundreds of stages remains necessary and is not replaced.

Key Parameters

| Parameter | Value |

|---|---|

| Rare-earth output | mixed concentrate — hydroxide, oxalate or carbonate |

| Metal output | cathode metal for the electrowinning group |

| Electrowinning | ambient temperature, containerised, scales by cell count |

| Consumables in separation | none |

| Reagents | only at the product-finishing stage |

Advantages

Closes the chain from stream to product on site: no ore, no subsoil licence, no new mine, no ten-year wait.

For a large part of the critical list the traded form is a salt or an oxide, so nothing needs to be shipped anywhere at all.

Supplies the one loading source for Western separation capacity that is available now rather than in 2035.

Mother liquors recirculate; there is no precipitation stage and therefore no sludge to bury.

TRL

TRL 4

Market Potential

Separation capacity outside the dominant jurisdiction is under construction while its feed remains unavailable. Domestic ore means a mine and a further seven to ten years; purchased concentrate originates where the dependency does. Concentrate recovered from waters already pumped inside those countries removes the dependency at the entry to the cascade.

Related Technologies

ARBOK-VC (Vacuum Cracking) · ARBOK-ZWD · ARBOK-Phosphate