文献名：Enrichment of trace rare earth elements from the leaching liquor of ion-absorption minerals using a solid complex centrifugal separation process 

 

作者：Yanliang Wang ^ab, Xiangguang Guo ^ab, Yanfeng Bi ^c, Jia Su ^ab, Weichang Kong ^d and Xiaoqi Sun ^ab 

^a CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, and Fujian Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, P. R. China. E-mail: xqsun@fjirsm.ac.cn; Fax: +86 5926376370; Tel: +86 5926376370

^b Fujian Research Center for Rare Earth Engineering Technology, Xiamen Institute of Rare Earth Materials, Haixi Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, P. R. China

^c Department of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Environment, Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun, Liaoning 113001, P. R. China

^d Longyan Rare-earth Development Co., Ltd, Longyan, Fujian 364000, P. R. China

 

摘要：A novel solid complex centrifugal separation (SCCS) process has been developed to enrich trace rare earth (RE) elements from the leaching liquor of ion-absorption RE minerals. When compared to liquid–liquid centrifugal extraction (LLCE), the proposed process employed 100% extractant without a volatile diluent for the RE enrichment process, which led to a much shorter equilibrium time of 5 min. Taking into account their ability to form solid complexes with RE ions from an aqueous phase, some alkyl phenoxy carboxylic acid derivatives, including p-tert-octylphenoxy acetic acid (POAA), iso-propanoic acid (POPA) and iso-butyric acid (POBA), were synthesized and used as the solid extractants. The SCCS process included the following steps: first, the solid extractants with a saponification degree of 80% were mixed with 0.5 g L−1 RE solution at a liquid/solid phase ratio of 200/1 to obtain the solid RE complexes. Second, the solid RE complexes were separated from the aqueous phase using a liquid/solid centrifugal separator. Finally, a high concentration of RE solution (>200 g L−1) was obtained by the stripping of solid RE complexes with concentrated HCl. In the SCCS process, a precipitation rate of more than 95.4% and a stripping rate of nearly 100% for RE could be achieved. Water solubilities of the as-prepared solid extractants in raffinate solution were tested to be lower than 32.8 ppm at 25 °C and the mass loss were determined as 0.6% for each cycle. The as-obtained high concentration RE solution with the purity of 96.9 wt% can be used directly as a feed solution for the next individual RE element separation.