Patent ID: 9045812
Filing Date: 2015-06-02
Classification: B02C,B07C,C22B,G01N,Y02P,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A method to recover cesium, rubidium, or both from secondary ore, wherein said secondary ore comprises 25 wt % Cs 2 O or less based on overall weight of said secondary ore and the majority of said secondary ore comprise pieces having at least one dimension that is over 5 inches (12.7 cm), said method comprising: obtaining crushed ore from said secondary ore and separating into at least three different size fractions, wherein said crushed ore comprising individual pieces, each piece having a size capable of passing through a U.S. standard sieve mesh/screen opening of 3 inches (76.2mm); conducting an initial calibration step, wherein before said passing of said crushed ore through a sorter, passing through, as size fractions, known rocks and minerals having size fractions that are the same as the at least three different size fractions of separated secondary ore, and that are representative of the rocks and minerals in said secondary ore to be sorted so as to calibrate said sorter, for each size fraction, with respect to what is representative of a “Grade 1 piece” or what is representative of a “Grade 2 piece” or both based on scanned properties of atomic number or material density or both; setting the sorter to sort for a desired size fraction selected from one of said at least three different size fractions; passing said desired size fraction of said crushed ore through said a sorter to conduct a sorting at a feed rate of at least 1 ton/hour, wherein said sorter determines whether each individual piece of crushed ore is said “Grade 1 piece” or said “Grade 2 piece”, based on said sorter conducting at least one scan of each individual piece and determining atomic number or material density or both of each individual piece, wherein said “Grade 1 piece” comprises Cs separating said Grade 1 pieces from said Grade 2 pieces, whereby wt % Cs