Country's only monazite processing plant goes on stream

India's only monazite processing plant (MOPP) at Orissa Sands Complex (OSCOM), a unit of Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL), a wholly owned PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has kicked off its commercial production recently.

Monazite is one of the beach sand minerals that contains rare earths like, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium etc. It also contains thorium which is a "prescribed substance", the list of which was revised in 2006 under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962.

While different rare earths are used for manufacturing of various parts of the computer, mobile phones, magnet for electric motors fitted in automobiles and gas mantle etc, thorium is important for the country's third stage nuclear power programme and has the potential to emerge as next generation fuel for nuclear power plants. It is being stockpiled for future use, said chairman-cum managing director, IREL RN Patra.

The 10,000 tonne per year monazite processing plant is designed to produce around 11,000 tonne of mixed rare earth chloride and 13,500 tonne of tri-sodium phosphate, sources said. The plant was set up at a cost of about Rs. 105 crore to process the monazite deposits available in the beaches of Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Kerala coasts.

Odisha has the third largest deposits of monazite in the country at 2.41 million tonnes after Andhra Pradesh (3.72 million tonnes) Tamil Nadu (2.46 million tonnes), according to the survey carried out by the Atomic Minerals Directorate and Exploration Research (AMDER). Other states, where these beach sand mineral deposits have been found, are Kerala (1.90 million tonnes), West Bengal (1.22 million tonnes) and Jharkhand (0.22 million tonnes), sources added.

It may be noted, IREL had earlier set up a monazite processing plant at Aluva in Kerala with lower capacity. But it was shut down about a decade ago because of availability of rare earth compounds at market competitive rates from China.

Present stock piling of thorium has assumed significance as the country has projected that about 30 percent of its energy demands would be met through non-carbon sources by 2030. Presently India has the installed capacity to produce 5,780- MW nuclear power. At present uranium is used for nuclear power generation in power plants. The uranium based power reactors will be augmented by thorium-based nuclear power reactors and the demand of thorium would be increased in future, sources added.