Removal of impurities from solution containing rare earth elements by precipitation and rare earth elements recovery using ion exchange

Rare earth elements are generally separated from the leaching solution by concentration as a by-product of the processing plants. Among the main problems of their separation and extraction is the low level of them in the leaching stage. This study aimed to recover available rare earth elements from leaching solution of the non-magnetic sample of the Gazestan iron ore. The solution under investigation contained low concentrations of the rare elements cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, and yttrium, along with significant impurities including ferric ions, calcium, and phosphorus. Therefore, the removal of impurities, especially iron, were investigated. In this regard, it was tried to precipitate rare earth elements as fractional. The two main methods examined, 1) fractional precipitation of rare elements, iron and phosphate, and 2) precipitation of rare elements and calcium while increasing the solution temperature and remaining iron in the solution. Finally, the results of the two methods showed that rare earth elements were concentrated effectively. The REEs concentrated around two to three times higher than their initial level in the concentration step. After that, the adsorption experiments were performed on a batch scale by the Dowex50 WX4 cationic resin. Some experiments were also considered to investigate the effect of temperature enhancement on the adsorption of REEs on resin from the concentrated solution. As the temperature increased, the adsorption of the REEs from the solution increased significantly. In this case, the removal of iron was around 98%. The maximum adsorption of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, and yttrium on the resin was, 99.11%, 98.67%, 99.0%, and 97.27%, respectively.