Abstract:New technology for separation and enrichment of rare earths in the seabed sediments namely a kind of new medium and heavy rare earth resource was studied. According to difference in surface physical properties between rare earth mineral phase and gangue mineral phase in sediments and difference in the stability of different mineral phases in acidic solutions, a new two-stage separation and enrichment process was studied. This process first uses ore-dressing method to initially separate most of gangue and rare earth minerals to obtain a pre-enriched rare earth concentrate, and then conducts a secondary chemical enrichment of rare earth concentrate to further remove impurity elements to obtain a high-grade rare earth intermediate product. After two separation and enrichment, about 99% of the impurity elements in the seabed sediments can be separated, and grade of rare earth in intermediate product can reach 6.41%. Compared with the crude ore, enrichment multiple of rare earth is 67 times, which is beneficial to subsequent separation of individual rare earths, acid consumption of intermediate products is 1/12 of that of crude ore.