Mining of rare earth metals from hydro mineral resources in Siberia: trends and prospects

Siberian scientists showed by their scientific investigations that brines of Siberian Platform are a very important hydro mineral resource for economical development of the East Russia. Prospects for the integrated mining of the hydromineral resources in Russia remain low. This is caused by the absence of efficient and environmentally friendly processing technologies. The necessity of resolving these problems relates to the perspectives of developing a source of raw materials in Russia for extracting strategic rare earth metals and rather alkaline and alkaline-earth elements (lithium, rubidium, cesium, strontium etc.) from unconventional sources of mineral raw materials. The unique property of the brines is their industrially profitable concentrations: by 20-25 times on lithium, by 5-10 times on rubidium, by 3 times on cesium, by 10 times on strontium. Great resources of rare-earth metals and rather alkaline and alkaline-earth elements (in industrially profitable concentrations) are concentrated in Angaro-Lensky and Oleneksky artesian basin on all lithological horizons. On the basis of theoretical studies and pilot researches revealed conditions of the selective extraction of strontium, lithium and rubidium from highly concentrated natural brines during the ion exchange. Technological schemes were developed to extraction of rare earth metals and rather alkaline and alkaline-earth elements from brines and various compositions of quarry waters of iron-ore and diamond deposits in Siberia.