Rare earths recovery and gypsum upgrade from Florida phosphogypsum

Phosphogypsum is a byproduct created during the production of industrial wet-process phosphoric acid. This study focused on recovering rare earth elements (REEs) from a Florida phosphogypsum sample and investigated the effects of removing detrimental impurities such as phosphorus pentoxide (P 2 O 5...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Minerals & Metallurgical Processing 2017-11, Vol.34 (4), p.201-206
Main Authors: Liang, H., Zhang, P., Jin, Z., DePaoli, D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
By products
Cement
Efficiency
Elutriation
Engineering
Fertilizers
Fluorides
Fluorine
GEOSCIENCES
Gypsum
Leaching
leaching efficiency
Materials Engineering
Metallic Materials
Mineral Resources
Phosphates
Phosphogypsum
Phosphoric acid
Phosphorus pentoxide
Rare earth elements
Sedimentation & deposition
Special Issue on Rare Earths
Sulfuric acid
Uranium
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Summary:Phosphogypsum is a byproduct created during the production of industrial wet-process phosphoric acid. This study focused on recovering rare earth elements (REEs) from a Florida phosphogypsum sample and investigated the effects of removing detrimental impurities such as phosphorus pentoxide (P 2 O 5 ), uranium (U) and fluorine (F) during the leaching process. Experimental results indicated that REE leaching efficiency increased rapidly, reached a maximum and then began to decrease with sulfuric acid concentrations ranging from 0 to 10 percent and temperatures ranging from 20 to 70 °C. At a sulfuric acid concentration of 5 percent and leaching temperature of 50 °C, REE leaching efficiency obtained a maximum value of approximately 43 percent. Increasing the leaching time or liquid/solid ratio increased the leaching efficiency. The leaching efficiencies of P 2 O 5 , U and F consistently increased with sulfuric acid concentration, temperature, leaching time and liquid/solid ratio within the testing ranges. A fine-grain gypsum concentrate, sized smaller than 40 µm, was separated from leached phosphogypsum through elutriation, in which the P 2 O 5 , U and F content levels were reduced by 99, 70 and 83 percent, respectively, from their content levels in fresh phosphogypsum.
ISSN:0747-9182
2524-3462
2524-3470
DOI:10.19150/mmp.7860