Rare earth and thorium mineralogy and geochemistry at the Alces Lake property, Saskatchewan: Towards green mining

萨斯喀彻温省阿尔塞斯湖矿区的稀土和钍矿物学和地球化学：迈向绿色采矿

• 批准号: 521074-2017
• 负责人: Pan, Yuanming
• 金额: $ 1.8万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Engage Grants Program
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=640718
• 关键词: Rare; earth; thorium; mineralogy; geochemistry

This application requests funds from the NSERC Engage Grant Program to create a new partnership between the University of Saskatchewan and Appia Energy Corp. (Toronto, Ontario) to research an environmentally friendly approach to mining rare earth elements (REE) on the Alces Lake property, northern Saskatchewan. The demand for REE has been increasing due to its widespread use in modern technology such as wind turbines, cellphones, televisions, computers, and electric vehicles. Mining high grade REE ores at the Alces Lake property will allow Canada to join the small list of nations that produce REE. However, REE deposits are often associated with elevated contents of thorium, a radioactive element. At present it is a common practice to dump thorium as a solid residue in waste rock piles and mine tailings. There has been a recent resurgence of interest in thorium for its use as a nuclear fuel. Through the advent of the thorium nuclear fuel cycle, it is possible to power reactors with thorium as a by-product from REE mining. The proposed study will investigate the mineralogy and geochemistry of four new REE-Th zones at the Alces Lake property, discovered by the industrial partner in its 2017 field campaign. One novel aspect of the proposed research is the characterization of the thorium distribution in the REE-Th ores at Alces Lake, which remains poorly understood in REE deposits in general and is analytically challenging due to its possible occurrences in exotic minerals. The benefits of the proposed research with direct relevance to thorium extraction are two-fold for Appia Energy Corp.: 1) it will produce thorium as a by-product to make the REE mining of the Alces Lake deposit more cost effective; 2) it will lower the environmental footprint from REE mining and make the mine tailings less radioactive.

该申请要求NSERC参与资助计划的资金，以建立萨斯喀彻温大学和阿皮亚能源公司（多伦多，安大略）之间的新伙伴关系，研究环境友好的方法来开采萨斯喀彻温省北部北方Alces湖的稀土元素（REE）。由于其在现代技术中的广泛使用，如风力涡轮机，手机，电视，电脑和电动汽车，对REE的需求一直在增加。在阿尔塞斯湖开采高品位稀土矿将使加拿大加入稀土生产国的行列。然而，稀土矿床往往与放射性元素钍的含量升高有关。目前，将钍作为固体残渣倾倒在废石堆和尾矿中是一种常见的做法。最近，人们对钍作为核燃料的兴趣重新抬头。随着钍核燃料循环的出现，有可能用钍作为稀土开采的副产品为反应堆提供动力。拟议的研究将调查Alces Lake财产的四个新REE-Th区的矿物学和地球化学，这些区域是由工业合作伙伴在其2017年的实地活动中发现的。拟议的研究的一个新的方面是在Alces湖的稀土钍矿石中的钍分布的表征，这仍然是在稀土矿床一般知之甚少，是具有挑战性的分析，由于其可能发生在外来矿物。与钍提取直接相关的拟议研究对阿皮亚能源公司有两方面的好处：1)它将产生钍作为副产品，使Alces湖存款的稀土开采更具成本效益; 2）它将降低稀土开采的环境足迹，并使尾矿的放射性更低。