Characterization of unconventional rare earth elements resources from Bangka monazite and tin slag.

Rare earth elements (REE) is one of the materials that can be applied in advance technology including battery, but the price that rose sharply in 2011 puts the risk of supplying it in the supply chain of this material, so currently, other materials based on Li and Ni elements are the main choice. New materials using LTJ provide significant technological developments in materials science. The development of this material is widely applied in industry to improve product quality. Unconventional mineral resources are one of the resources obtained from the co or by-product mineral processing such as in tin mining, which is the residue from the processing produces tin-bearing minerals (MIT), one co- product is monazite and by-product is tin slag (slag). Both contain quite high rare earth elements depending on the level of beneficiation and processing. Bangka's monazite and tin slag concentrate contain a total of about 60% and 7% of rare- earth elements (TREO), respectively about 1,000 ppm and 500 ppm uranium and 6% and 5,000 ppm thorium. The availability of rare earth resources in Indonesia has not been widely publicized due to their availability as co-product commodity in tin mining. The research purpose is to estimate early resources to support the processing and utilization of rare earth elements-based industries. The research method is carried out through inventory, sampling, and testing of tin slag samples from 25 smelters. The samples were analysed using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) method to measure REE and their concentration. The monazite production as co-product of tin mining from 2012 to present is 16,448 tons while slag 1 and slag 2 as by products are 456,464 tons and 186,906 tons. Based on the XRF analysis on the samples, total REE in monazite, slag 1, and slag 2 are 56.79%, 11.8%, and 8.68% respectively. The REE resources from monazite and tin slags are 9,341 tons and 70,314 tons respectively. Total resources are 79,655 tons REE as unconventional resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]