Rare earth elements (REEs), especially heavy REEs (HREEs), are important in modern industry. However, the conventional mining technique applies excessive usage of ammonium-salt-based leaching agents to recover HREEs from ion-adsorption rare earth deposits (IADs), which exhibits low efficiency and devastating environmental impact on the local ecosystem.
Click here for original story, Electrokinetic mining technology for recovering rare earth elements from weathering crusts
Source: Phys.org