On the alkali leaching kinetics of rubidium ore quenching slag in molten water

With the development and application of rubidium and its compounds in emerging fields in recent years, the market for rubidium has found an ever-increasing expansion. At present, rubidium ores are treated by acid method, alkali method and acid-base combination method. However, most of these technologies have disadvantages of large acid-alkali consumption, low leaching efficiency and inefficient resource utilization. To solve these defects of the existing technology, we propose a new technology for the treatment of rubidium ores, molten water quenching plus alkali immersion. Through molten water quenching, the stable silicon-oxygen tetrahedral structure in rubidium ore is destroyed. Thus, water quenching slag exists in a highly active state. For the target of clarifying the leaching activity of water-quenched slag, the shrinkage core model was used to study the influence of leaching temperature and water-quenched slag particle size on the leaching effect of rubidium. The results show: compared to the traditional alkali treatment of rubidium ores, melt water quenching-alkali leaching method achieves high efficient leaching of rubidium at low temperatures and low alk ali concentrations. The apparent activation energy of the alkali leaching reaction is 37.41 kJ/mol. The alkali leaching process of water quenched slag accords with the mixed control model, and the leached slag is analcime.