Review of technology of rubidium extraction from silicate ore resources

In recent years, with the demand of new energy and other fields, the development and utilization of rubidium ore has been rapidly developed. Rubidium ore is mainly contained in granite pegmatite, carnallite and potash deposits. At present, most of rubidium is extracted from granite pegmatite. Its resource characteristics are large scale and low grade. The carrier minerals are mainly lepidolite, Iron lepidolite, cesium garnet and potash feldspar. This article summarizes the extraction process of rubidium from silicate ore resources systematically. The extraction process of rubidium ore is mainly acid leaching method, alkali roasting leaching method and salt roasting water immersion method. Acid leaching process has the advantage of high leaching efficiency, but the disadvantage is that there are many impurities in the leaching solution, which brings great difficulties to the subsequent separation. The alkaline process is mature, and the rubidium extraction rate is high, but the amount of slag is large and the cost is high. The salt roasting water immersion method has a high recovery efficiency and a small amount of slag, but produces harmful gases to pollute the environment, and the generated gases are easy to corrode the equipment. In order to solve the problems of low resource utilization, a large amount of slag and heavy environmental pollution in the development and utilization of rubidium ore, the collaborative extraction and productization of aluminum and potassium are the key development directions.