Recovery of iron and rare earth elements from red mud through an acid leaching-stepwise extraction approach

Abstract

A feasible approach to selectively recover iron and rare earth elements (REEs) from red mud through acid leaching-coordination-solvent extraction was proposed. The leaching efficiencies of Fe, Al, Ti, Sc, La, Ce, Nd and Y can reach up to 95.9%, 82.1%, 68.3%, 93.3%, 82.3%, 96.9%, 98.3% and 95.6%, respectively, under the optimal condition in the leaching process. Aliquat 336 showed excellent extraction performance of iron in chloride-rich solution, and the maximum extraction efficiency can reach over 96% in one time extraction while the loss of other metals was less than 10%, under the condition of Aliquat 336 concentration (v/v) of 30%, aqueous-organic ratio of 1.0 and extraction time of 20 min. Furthermore, P204 can effectively extract the scandium while Al and most other REEs remain in the aqueous phase. This approach may provide a new insight for the recovery of valuable resources from red mud.

Keywords

red mud / iron / rare earth elements / leaching / solvent extraction

References

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