Evaluation of Chelating Resins Efficiency in Recovering Rare Earth Elements from Sulphate-Rich Acid Solutions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37256/epr.3120232154Keywords:
ion exchange, rare earth elements, elution, chelating resinsAbstract
This work investigates the use of chelating resins for recovering rare earth elements (REE) from a laboratory solution with pH and sulphate concentrations similar to those of an acid mine drainage (AMD). The loading experiments were performed in ion exchange columns, fed with a solution at pH 3.5 containing 0.49 g L-1 of REE, 0.06 g L-1 of impurities and 1.11 g L-1 of sulphate ions. The highest loading was obtained for the PUROLITE® MTS 9500 resin activated with Na+, and it was 101.8 mg g-1, which corresponds to a sorption efficiency of 73%. The loading results showed that the resins have greater selectivity for REE over impurities. Regarding elution, greater efficiency (i.e., 96%) was obtained with the resin PUROLITE® MTS 9300; however, this resin presented lower loadings. A final liquor with a maximum REE concentration of 1.72 g L-1 and maximum impurities concentration of 0.02 g L-1 was obtained for PUROLITE® MTS 9500 resin activated with H+, which presents an elution efficiency of 80%.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Luciano Bernardo José, Gabriela Cordeiro Silva, Ana Claudia Queiroz Ladeira
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.