A recently discovered the rare-earth-rich site in Capacsaya, located at 123 km northwest of Cusco, at the south of Peru, contains signifcant quantities of light and heavy rare-earth elements such as neodymium, lanthanum, cerium, europium, and yttrium. This work reports the identifcation of rare-earth elements and their associated minerals using scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray difraction analyses. Five (5) samples extracted from diferent locations at the Capacsaya site were characterized and identifed K-feldspar as the mineral associated with the rare-earth elements in a representative sample with a high concentration of lanthanum and cerium. The results showed rare-earth elements contained within the mineral phase monazite, being cerium the dominant element in the phase (La, Ce, Nd)PO4. Finally, through the electrostatic separation process we ...

90 páginas, 4 mapas.