Mineral Features and Current Extraction Situation of Rare Earth Resources in Deep-sea Deposit

This is an essay in the field of mining engineering. Deep-sea rare earth rich deposit, as a potential rare earth resource, are an important supplement to land rare earth resources and may become one of the first deep-sea minerals to be exploited. In this paper, four deep-sea REE rich deposit (REE rich deposits in the western Pacific Ocean, the southeast Pacific Ocean, the middle and east Pacific Ocean, and the Middle Indian Ocean basin-Wharton Basin.) are analyzed. This paper summarizes the basic resource characteristics of deep-sea rare earth rich deposit (such as large total reserves, large distribution differences, and the main occurrence mineral is biological apatite), and reviews two methods (acid leaching-extraction separation technology and separation-flotation method) used in the separation and extraction of deep-sea REE. The result shows that the acid leaching-extraction separation technology has the disadvantages of low recovery of REE and excessive acid consumption. The separation of sediment samples before flotation operation can achieve efficient enrichment of REE in deposit under the condition of low acid consumption, which is an important development direction to separate and extract REE resources from deep-sea REE rich deposit. Based on this, it is suggested to strengthen the research and development related to efficient classification of deep-sea REE rich deposit resources and in-situ mining and leaching technology in the future.