Research Progress and Prospects of Detection Technology for Tri-Rare Elements in Coal from the Lianghuai Coalfield

Abstract

"Triple-rare" minerals (referring to rare elements, scattered elements, and rare earth elements) are key strategic resources supporting the new generation of information technology, new energy, and high-end equipment manufacturing, and their safe supply has risen to the national strategic height. Coal-bearing associated tripleple-rare elements, as important alternative resources to traditional minerals, show great development potential worldwide. As a core energy base in East China, the Lianghuai Coalfield contains abundant lithium, gallium, germanium, and rare earth element resources in its deep coal-bearing strata. However, the superposition of multi-stage tectonic movements and magmatic hydrothermal fluids has resulted in high ash and high sulfur content of coal and extremely complex occurrence states of tripleple-rare elements, posing severe challenges to analytical and detection technologies. This paper systematically combs the research progress of tripleple-rare elements in coal at home and abroad, and focuses on analyzing the core bottlenecks faced by detection technologies under the special geological background of the Lianghuai Coalfield. The research shows that the international community has established a genetic classification system for rare earth elements in coal and a general detection method based on low-ash and low-sulfur coal, but there is a significant mismatch in geological background. Domestically, preliminary achievements have been made in the geochemical characteristics and enrichment rules of tripleple-rare elements in the Lianghuai Coalfield, but the detection system still has shortcomings such as insufficient pertinence, lack of special reference materials, and weak regional research foundation. Finally, this paper discusses the development trend of detection technology for tripleple-rare elements in coal, and proposes that establishing a targeted digestion system based on element occurrence states, constructing a quality control network adapted to the regional geological background, and improving the resource availability evaluation standards are the key research directions in the future, which can provide technical support for the precise exploration and high-value utilization of tripleple-rare resources in the Lianghuai Coalfield.