The availability of resources is one of the key foundations of the rapid development of our modern society. Unfortunately, high grade ores have been depleted and the environmental concerns have placed restrictions on our ability to use the natural resources. Thus, it is important to find sustainable pathways to obtain resources with reduced environmental footprints. In light of this challenge, closing the material cycle and extracting the useful materials from the end of life of products have a great potential to reduce both the supply risk and landfill pressure. In particular, rare-earth elements (REE) has a high economic incentive in recovering from unconventional resources such as industrial wastes due to their high market demand. Iron slag and steel slag are alkaline silicate wastes that are produced during steel-making processes. Those wastes are environmentally hazardous when landfilled but do contain a large amount of valuable materials including calcium, aluminum, and magnesium as well as silica and REEs depending on the geographic regions of their feedstock origins. In our study, we have developed a REE enrichment scheme from slag that involves hydrometallurgical treatment, selective dissolution, and co-precipitation of iron and REE. Depending on the concentration ratio of Fe and REEs, the grade of recovered REEs can vary significantly. Thus, a step-wise separation of precipitated Fe-oxides and Fe-oxide/REEs is needed. Solvent extraction is another option to selectively separate REEs from the leachate containing high concentrations of different metal ions. In this study, different pH conditions and chemical additives for the co-precipitation of REEs are experimented and the possibility of integrating a liquid-liquid extraction process that is using greener solvents such as ionic liquids to extract high purity REEs are investigated.

Selective separation and enrichment of rare-earth elements from unconventional resources via co-precipitation and liquid-liquid extraction

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.