Research progress in the application and extraction process of Rubidium

In recent years, due to its excellent physical and chemical properties, rubidium has not only played important roles in traditional fields such as electronic devices, special glass, and medicine, but also shown infinite vitality in new energy technology fields such as magnetic fluid power generation and ion propulsion engines. Rubidium is mainly found in ore and salt lake brine resources. The relatively mature processes of extracting rubidium from rubidium-containing ore mainly include sulfuric acid decomposition method and roasting decomposition method. The traditional rubidium extraction process from ores has problems such as complex processes, high pollution, and high energy consumption, which poses a severe test to achieve the goal of "carbon peak and neutrality". The analysis shows that solvent extraction method and ion exchange method are more promising in solving the problem of extracting rubidium from liquid resources such as salt lake brine. The process of extracting rubidium from salt lake brine, simple with low energy consumption, has no ore decomposition process, avoiding the generation of a large amount of solid waste residue, and thus is friendly to environment. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of various types of rubidium ores and salt lake brine resources, the uses of rubidium resources in various fields were briefly introduce in this paper. In addition, the research status as well as advantages and disadvantages of key rubidium extracting technologies, such as sulfuric acid decomposition method, carbonate roasting method, chlorinate roasting method, solvent extraction method and ion exchange method, are comprehensively introduced. Finally, the development direction of clean environmental protection and efficient rubidium extraction is looked forward to.