The Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements from Apatite Concentrate by Acid and Digestion-Water Leaching Processes in Morvarid Iron Mine, Iran
A. Adib1, R. Ahmadi2, E. Rahimi1
1Islamic Azad University, Tehran, 1584743311 Iran
2Imam Khomeini International University, Tehran, 1584743311, Iran
Keywords: Acid leaching, rare earth elements, effective parameters, digest-water leaching
Abstract
In this article, the recovery of the Y, La, Nd, and Ce rare-earth elements (REE) from apatite concentrate by acid leaching and digestion-water leaching processes were studied. The maximum REE recovery of 62% in the acid leaching process with sulfuric acid was obtained for La in the condition of 12 M acid concentration, leaching time of 4 h, process temperature of 25℃, and a liquid to solid ratio (L/S) of 1:5. In the optimal conditions in terms of process (220℃, 3 h and L/S (1:2)), the digesting process in the presence of sulfuric acid led to the recovery of La, Ce, Nd and Y at 93.92, 92.22, 92.04 and 91.00%, respectively. In contrast, the aqueous leaching process in the optimum conditions, including a leaching time of 5 h, at 80℃ and L/S of 1:10 ended up recovering the La, Ce, Nd, and Y at 89.50, 88.45, 92.20 and 94.0%, respectively.
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