After discussing Mt. Weld another share holder he asked me if Lynas was down as a result of a bad market or something worse. After discussing the QR and Mt. Weld I noted that the true magic in the Lynas operation occurs at the Malaysian plant in Kuantan where the individual rare earths are separated, dried and packaged for sale…
To that end, I was fortunate enough to have toured the LAMP a number of years ago and I was truly amazed at the IP and experience displayed by the staff of a pretty complex operation. I thought I would take just a bit of time to post some pictures and a brief description of what actually goes on inside the LAMP (Lynas Advanced Materials Plant) in Kuantan, Malaysia. I hope this will help paint a little clearer picture for those who want to know more about the processing and workings inside the LAMP…
A chemical plant often incorporates many different processes and according to Amanda the timing of all of the processes is critical to maintaining smooth operation of the plant. It took years to engineer, construct and commission a project of such complexity and to that end Lynas has been fine tuning and upgrading the process since commissioning. The result is a new, streamlined, efficient and technologically advanced rare earth processing facility that would be the envy of the industry if they understood it…
While the very basics of the operation are somewhat easy to comprehend, the intricate details and science involved each step is at times nothing short of amazing. The amount of IP (intellectual property) that has been accumulated is substantial and the plethora of electrical and mechanical devices, mostly programmed in-house, have automated the processes in virtually all of these systems...
The process itself begins with the mining and concentration of the ore at Mt.Weld. Mt. Weld utilizes a concentration process called flotation where the ore is ground and placed in solution while bubble are blown from the bottom of the solution. The rising bubbles create a surface scum of concentrated ore which is collected, dried and shipped by sea where it arrives at the LAMP in containers…
The ore is then loaded on to a conveyor belt where it is crushed and cracked utilizing a small ball mill, sulphuric acid and of course a kiln that heats the treated ore to 1000 degrees C. What results is a concentrated RE solution containing most of the RE elements in the periodic chart. After the trip through the kiln and filtration, the RE solution is sent to the separation process where the different RE's are processed into the individual elements...
When I visited a number of years ago they were using six or seven circuits utilized in the separation process each of which contain a series of tanks called trains. The trains work by utilizing both an organic solution combined with an aqueous (read water) solution mixed together with the RE slurry. The mixture of this solution is then allowed to settle resulting in a solution much like separated oil and vinegar. During this time the RE's suspended in the mixture tend to associate with either the aqueous solution or the organic solution...
Since the actual separation is much less than a perfect process, this entire process is repeated many times. Each time the organic solution further separates RE's by sending the aqueous solution in one direction and the organic solution in the other direction through the series of consecutive tanks (trains)…
Every tank performs the same process resulting in each tank being slightly more pure the preceding tank. The number of these tanks lined up sequentially can vary depending on the level of purification desired and in practice there can be up to 50 tanks or more in each train. For example a four nines purity (99.99%) will require significantly more steps (and tanks) than a lower purity grade of only three nines (99.9%)...
The next step is to precipitate the solutions to extract solid, separated RE's for final drying where the solids are put through a very long tunnel furnace to remove any remaining moisture. The final step is to bag the separated RE's and move them to the product warehouse for shipment to the end user...
This is probably an over simplification of the process and the details involved in each step are numerous as modifications and improvements are added to the systems on a regular basis...
I have included a few pictures of the process and keep in mind that these pictures are from the early days. What I am trying to show is that it is nearly incomprehensible to see how far ahead of the pack the Lynas IP and experience has progressed. One can only imagine how far the innovative technical advancements have taken the current design process and I for one am looking forward checking out an operating Kalgoorlie, hopefully with a matching separation facility some day…
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