Egy nyersanyag, amelyről már lemondtunk. Hátha mégis jó lesz még valamire??

The „resurrection” of bauxites as potential REE-resources?

Abstract

As a result of the current industrial revolution (digitalization, artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, unconventional military technologies etc.) there is an ever-increasing demand for new mineral raw materials. REEs are of importance, the more so that most of the world market is dominated by Chinese producers. During the past ten years, having realized the importance of domestic REE resources, the EU has launched several projects with the aim of reserves estimation and the review of existing and novel technologies to extract REEs from unconventional („secondary”) raw materials. Secondary enrichment of REEs in the weathering crust (e.g. in bauxites) and in the by-products of alumina-production (red mud) have long since attracted the attention of alumina-technologists. Now because of the increasing demand for REEs, old karst bauxite mines and red-mud storage areas in the vicinity of abandoned alumina plants of the ESE-European region became of utmost importance. The presentation will discuss those geological conditions which may lead to the concentration of REEs in the weathering environment (particularly in karst bauxites) to such an extent as to potentially result in their commercial-grade enrichment in the by-product of the Bayer-process.

The research was carried out in the frames of an EIT project (REEBAUX-17098) between 2018 and 2021. Final results of the project were summarized in an 86 page booklet, entitled “Bauxite and bauxite-residue as a potential resource of REE in the ESEE region” (written by experts involved in the project and edited by project-leader N. Tomasic, published on-line in Zagreb 2021). The volume is accessible on the internet via this link: http://reebaux.gfz.hr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/REEBAUX-booklet.pdf. Of interest are Chapters 2. and 2.3 (on the geology of Bauxites of the ESEE region); Ch.5.5 with all the REE analytical results tabulated and discussed, and Ch.6.Future Perspectives.