Rare earth extractants for high-purity separation of light, medium, and heavy rare earth elements introduction.
Because the separation factor between adjacent rare earths is extremely small, separating them requires massive SX steps. The choice of rare earth extractants dictate the efficiency, cost, and purity of the final rare earth oxides.
The working process of rare earth extractants:
A standard rare earth SX plant should use a lot of steps and different Rare earth extractants to do the separation processes:
- Impurity Removal (P204): P204 can extract Fe, Al, Th, and U out from PLS, leaving the REEs in the raffinate.
- Cerium Removal (P204 or P507): Cerium is unique because it can be easily oxidized to Ce, will be extracted out at a very low pH.
- Group Splitting (P204 or P507): The solution is split into Light, Medium, and Heavy fractions.
- Individual Separation (P507): The massive middle section of the plant. Using P507 to separate the LREE and MREE groups.
- Heavy REE/Y Separation (DY272 or P507): Use DY272 or highly optimized P507 circuits to separate Y from Dy, Tb, etc.
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