On the afternoon of July 12, the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology held a regular press conference for the second quarter of 2024.
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| Associate Professor, Dr. Hoang Anh Son, Director of the Institute of Materials Science |
In recent times, in order to promote cooperation, technology transfer and product promotion, the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology has implemented scientific and technological cooperation with ministries, branches, localities and enterprises.
In particular, it has coordinated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to deploy tasks on developing and mastering deep processing technology for rare earth minerals and tasks on biological industry and food industry.
Associate Professor Dr. Hoang Anh Son, Director of the Institute of Materials Science, said that the ideal process of rare earth ore processing is to achieve products with high added value. However, depending on the level of technology and investment capacity, it can be carried out in stages.
At the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, research on rare earths in the direction of separation by ion exchange method and then research on developing rare earth extraction technology was carried out very early.
The process of separating light rare earth elements to high purity by chromatography has separated the rare earth oxides Lanthanum, Neodymium, Prazeodymium, Samarium, Europium from the total rare earth on a cation exchange column and purified up to 99.9%.
The technological process of fractional extraction on the 80-step continuous countercurrent extraction system has produced some rare earth oxides La2O3 99.9%; Pr 98.4%; Nd 97.6% purity in the laboratory since the early 80s of the last century.
“The outstanding achievement is the 2005 State Prize for Science and Technology on “Rare earth materials technology serving production, life and environmental protection” awarded to scientists from the Institute of Materials Science” – Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Anh Son emphasized.
The Director of the Institute of Materials Science also informed about the research results on rare earth selection and processing technology at units under the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Specifically, the Institute of Rare Earth Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology has conducted continuous research with all processing stages: Selection, hydrometallurgy, and refining on ore objects in Vietnam. Notably, the construction of a diagram for selecting Yen Phu rare earth ore with a content of 30% and Dong Pao sea soil with a content of 35-38%.
The Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Ministry of Industry and Trade (now the Institute of Mining Science and Technology - Metallurgy) has experimented with selecting Dong Pao rare earth ore samples on a closed selection line with a capacity of 100 kg/h at the Institute of Mining Science and Technology - Metallurgy, obtaining synthetic rare earth concentrates with a content of about 35% RE; actual rare earth recovery of about 72%; barite concentrates with a content of about 93% BaSO4; actual barite recovery of 93%; fluorite concentrates with a content of 70% CaF2; actual fluorite recovery of about 70%.
“This result is a highly reliable database that can serve the implementation plan of the project to build a rare earth ore processing plant at Dong Pao F3 ore body on an industrial scale,” said Mr. Son.
However, Mr. Son said that for Lai Chau rare earth, all previous research projects have stopped at the laboratory or pilot scale, some problems with the selection agent have not been solved, so the selection quality is not high, the final quality of rare earth ore is not as expected (content and actual recovery rate of rare earth, content of harmful impurities).
Up to now, there has been no factory processing Vietnamese rare earth concentrate into products that meet export standards, with the total rare earth oxide content having to reach at least 95% or more.
Regarding the technology of separating rare earth oxides and cleaning them to high purity, although there has been research very early, most of it has only been implemented in the laboratory, and no technology has been applied in practice.
Recently, many foreign enterprises and partners from the US, Japan, Korea, etc. have shown interest in, researched and expressed their desire to cooperate with Vietnam in the field of rare earth mineral exploitation and processing.
However, it must be noted that only a few manufacturers in these countries have the technology to deeply process rare earths, but they keep it copyrighted, secret, and do not transfer the technology. “The technology to manufacture rare earth metals, create raw materials to serve the production of products for the electric vehicle industry, wind power, defense industry, etc. requires a very high level of technology,” Mr. Son stated.
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