Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

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Using Citric Acid for Rare Earth Element extraction (2 replies and 1 comment)

D
WYOMing Prospector
4 years ago
WYOMing Prospector 4 years ago

Have read several studies where it is known that citric acid will dissolve 15 of the rare earths into solution.  Question I have is what liquid can I use with the citric acid for solution and then to precipitate them back out what is the best method?  Trying to be eco-friendly with this complete process.   Thank you in advance.

T
Todd H
4 years ago
Todd H 4 years ago
Like

Rare earths are extremely complicated to recovery from solution.  They all disolve relatively easily in acid solutions but are so close together in their properties that recovering them is a life long pursuit.  Molycorp had a major plant with 3 or 4 different solvent extractions systems and several others have used ion exchange resins.  This is a major engineering challenge and is not as simple as add a magic precipitation reagent to recover them.

Regards

Todd Harvey - Global Resource Engineering http://www.global-resource-eng.com

D
WYOMing Prospector
4 years ago

I was looking at a study where they used D2Ehpa in solvent 70 and recovered 15 ree with 95 % efficiency. Granted they
would all be conglomerated. But couldnt they then be sent to a refinery to further process? Thank you for the comment.

Mike
4 years ago
Mike 4 years ago
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The normal (if there is such a thing with rare earths) is to use gravity and flotation to produce a concentrate, then use a multi stage leaching process to separate the RE's.  The leaching stage is the refinery.  Also the leaching is a very complicated process requiring very careful control.  Anyone claiming a simple and easy process, really does not understand dealing with them.


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