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Extraction of Rare Earth Elements from Phosphogypsum Using Mineral Acids: Process Development and Mechanistic Investigation

  • Sicheng Li
    Sicheng Li
    Laboratory for Strategic Materials, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada
    More by Sicheng Li
    Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0746-0176
  • , 
  • Monu Malik
    Monu Malik
    Laboratory for Strategic Materials, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada
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  • , and 
  • Gisele Azimi*
    Gisele Azimi
    Laboratory for Strategic Materials, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada
    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, 184 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E4, Canada
    *Email: [email protected]
    More by Gisele Azimi
    Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0665-7199
Cite this: Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2022, 61, 1, 102–114
Publication Date (Web):December 14, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.1c03576
Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society
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    Abstract

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    A hydrometallurgical process is developed to leach yttrium, neodymium, and dysprosium from phosphogypsum using three mineral acids, namely, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid over a wide range of conditions. Hydrochloric acid is selected as the best leachant, resulting in 94.6% neodymium and 86.1% dysprosium leaching efficiency under the optimum operating conditions of 45 °C, 2.5 M, and 29.8 mL/g L/S ratio. A systematic investigation using statistical analyses and empirical modeling was performed to determine the best leachant and optimum operating conditions that result in high rare earth element (REE) leaching reported in the literature. Thorough characterization techniques, thermodynamic modeling, and kinetic analysis are utilized to elucidate the leaching mechanism. The results indicate that leaching efficiency is highly correlated with phosphogypsum solubility. The occurrence modes of rare earth elements in phosphogypsum are determined using time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), which shows that rare earths are present both as isomorphous Ca2+ substitutions and as separate phases such as oxides and sulfates trapped inside the phosphogypsum crystal. Hence, achieving a high leaching yield requires the destruction of the phosphogypsum lattice through acid attack and dissolution.

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    The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.1c03576.

    • Additional information on the experimental and statistical methodology and supporting results; preliminary kinetic curve of acid leaching (Figure S1); factor effect plots for the empirical extraction model (Figure S2); X-ray diffractogram of leaching residues (Figure S3); TOF-SIMS spectra of the PG sample (Figure S4); annual profit of the HCl acid leaching process (Figure S5); overview of previous studies (Table S1); summary of −1, 0, and +1 factor levels (Table S2); face-centered central composite experimental design matrix (Table S3); compositional analysis of bulk elements (Table S4); overview of the HCl experimental design matrix (Table S5); overview of the HNO3 experimental design matrix (Table S6); overview of the H2SO4 experimental design matrix (Table S7); summary of factor effect coefficients (Tables S8–S10); comparisons of the linearity of ash layer diffusion control (Table S11); HCl acid leaching operating conditions (Table S12); final cost summary for HCl acid leaching (Table S13); and characterization results of CaSO4 precipitate (Table S14) (PDF)

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    Cited By

    This article is cited by 7 publications.

    1. Guilherme L. Dotto, Julien Vieillard, Diana Pinto, Sabrina F. Lütke, Luis F.O. Silva, Glaydson S. dos Reis, Éder C. Lima, Dison S.P. Franco. Selective adsorption of gadolinium from real leachate using a natural bentonite clay. Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2023, 11 (3) , 109748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2023.109748
    2. Sonali Rout, Abhilash, Pratima Meshram, Patrick Zhang. A Comprehensive Review on Occurrence and Processing of Phosphate Rock Based Resources- Focus on REEs. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review 2023, 10 , 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/08827508.2022.2161537
    3. Ahmed Atef Eliwa, Amal Essam Mubark, Nasr Abelaziz Abdelfattah, Ebrahim Abd El Gawad. Maximizing the exploitation of phosphogypsum wastes using soaking technique with citric acid, recovering rare-earth and residual phosphate contents. Journal of Central South University 2022, 29 (12) , 3896-3911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-022-5209-0
    4. Éder C. Lima, Diana Pinto, Matias Schadeck Netto, Glaydson S. Dos Reis, Luis F. O. Silva, Guilherme L. Dotto. Biosorption of Neodymium (Nd) from Aqueous Solutions Using Spirulina platensis sp. Strains. Polymers 2022, 14 (21) , 4585. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14214585
    5. Riya Banerjee, Saswati Chakladar, Ashok Mohanty, Sanchita Chakravarty, Shyamal Kumar Chattopadhyay, M.K. Jha. Review on the environment friendly leaching of rare earth elements from the secondary resources using organic acids. Geosystem Engineering 2022, 249 , 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/12269328.2022.2135139
    6. Fenghui Wu, Xinxin Liu, Guangfei Qu. High value-added resource utilization of solid waste: Review of prospects for supercritical CO2 extraction of valuable metals. Journal of Cleaner Production 2022, 372 , 133813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133813
    7. Marouen Jouini, Alexandre Royer-Lavallée, Thomas Pabst, Eunhyea Chung, Rina Kim, Young-Wook Cheong, Carmen Mihaela Neculita. Sustainable Production of Rare Earth Elements from Mine Waste and Geoethics. Minerals 2022, 12 (7) , 809. https://doi.org/10.3390/min12070809
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