World's Largest Rare Earth Production Base Begins Operation in Baotou, Inner Mongolia

Recently, the first phase of the Northern Rare Earth Green Smelting Upgrading and Renovation Project of Baosteel Group was completed and put into production, marking the official operation of the world's largest rare earth raw material production base in Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

The Northern Rare Earth Green Smelting Upgrading and Renovation Project was officially launched in April 2023. More than 90 units participated in the project construction. After more than 440 days of hard work, the first phase of the project was successfully completed and put into production. The main process production plant covers a large area, which is rarely seen in the rare earth smelting industry. It is the world's largest and most complete rare earth smelting and separation project. The project replaces the original production line with new production capacity. It is an important representative of new quality productivity. The production line process technology, equipment, environmental protection, and production capacity are all industry-leading. It can flexibly switch product specifications and models according to customer needs to meet the downstream demand for various raw materials to the greatest extent.

The project has achieved continuous automated production of powder material unloading, stacking, retrieving, batching, conveying, dissolving and other links for the first time in the rare earth industry through a combination of a series of first-of-its-kind equipment, including surface feeders, multi-hook cranes, bridge stackers, stackers, scraper feeders, thickeners, material packaging and conveying turnover systems, etc., ensuring that the CNC rate of key processes and the digitalization rate of production equipment are leading in the industry. Taking the concentrate warehouse as an example, relying on new equipment, the industry has achieved continuous, digital and automated storage and transportation of concentrates for the first time, automatically scanning the inbound and outbound quantities of concentrates, updating the inventory in real time, and greatly improving work efficiency.

The project has adopted a large number of innovative achievements in process technology, and has made major breakthroughs in process control, energy saving and cost reduction, and green environmental protection. In the roasting process, the project has built an integrated equipment system of drying-roasting-cooling, using the industry's most mature concentrated sulfuric acid high-temperature roasting process, and pre-treating the raw materials before roasting, so as to achieve a precise ratio of raw materials and auxiliary materials, which not only achieves stable control of product quality, but also provides convenient conditions for subsequent environmental protection treatment. In the water immersion stage, the project department innovatively developed the "continuous leaching-washing process" and developed the industry's first set of fully automatic and efficient solid-liquid washing and separation integrated new equipment, realizing continuous countercurrent washing of slag washing and achieving the maximum water saving effect. Transformation and extraction workshop C is the core of the first phase of the project construction project. It adopts the internationally leading magnesium bicarbonate method for smelting and separating Baotou rare earth ore new process and sulfate rare earth linkage extraction and transformation separation to achieve the merger of transformation and separation processes, simplify the process flow, and reduce the cost of raw and auxiliary materials and acid and alkali unit consumption by more than 30% respectively; realize the recycling of resources such as magnesium, carbon dioxide, and water.

From a drawing to a plant area, from a grand blueprint to a vivid reality, China's northern rare earth green smelting upgrade and transformation project introduces new technologies, new processes, and new equipment to create a modern world-class rare earth raw material production enterprise integrating digitalization, intelligence, and greening, and realize the rare earth from "world-class reserves" to "world-class industry".

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