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Recovery of waste rare earth fluorescent powders by two steps acid leaching

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Abstract

The effects of the acid leaching and alkali fusion on the leaching efficiency of Y, Eu, Ce, and Tb from the waste rare earth fluorescent powders were investigated in this paper. The results show that hydrochloric acid is better than sulfuric acid in the first acid leaching, and NaOH is better than Na2CO3 in the alkali fusion. In the first acid leaching, the W loss is 20.94 % when the waste rare earth fluorescent powders are acid leached in H+ concentration 3 mol·L−1 and S/L ratio 1:3 for 4 h due to red powders dissolved. The better results of the alkali fusion can be got at 800 °C for 2 h when the NaOH is used. The blue powders and the green powders can be dissolved into NaAlO2 and oxides such as rare earth oxide (REO). The REO can be dissolved in H+ concentration 5 mol·L−1, S/L 1:10 for 3 h in the second acid leaching. The leaching rates of the Y, Eu, Ce, and Tb are 99.06 %, 97.38 %, 98.22 %, and 98.15 %, respectively. The leaching rate of the total rare earth is 98.60 %.

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Acknowledgments

The work was financially supported by the National Hi-Tech R&D Program of China (No. 2012AA063202), the National Key Project of Scientific and Technical Support Program of China (Nos. 2011BAE13B07, 2012BAC02B01, and 2011BAC10B02), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51174247 and 50972013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Materials and Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shen-Gen Zhang, Min Yang, Hu Liu, De-An Pan & Jian-Jun Tian

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  1. Shen-Gen Zhang
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  2. Min Yang
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  3. Hu Liu
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Correspondence to Shen-Gen Zhang.

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Zhang, SG., Yang, M., Liu, H. et al. Recovery of waste rare earth fluorescent powders by two steps acid leaching. Rare Met. 32, 609–615 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-013-0170-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-013-0170-6

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