Abstract
There is a growing need to develop new strategies for rare earth element (REE) recovery from secondary resources. Herein, a novel approach to utilize biogenic silica (from rice husk) and metakaolin was employed to fabricate magnetic geopolymer (MGP) by incorporating metallic iron. The fabricated MGP adsorbent material was used to uptake Ce3+, La3+, and Nd3+ from synthetic solutions and real phosphogypsum leachate in batch and column modes. The MGP offers a negatively charged surface at pH above 2.7, and the uptake of REEs rises from pH 3 to 6. The kinetic study validated that the kinetics was much faster for Nd3+, followed by La3+ and Ce3+. A thermodynamic investigation validated the exothermic nature of the adsorption process for all selected REEs. The desorption experiment using 2 mol L−1 H2SO4 as the eluent demonstrated approximately 100% desorption of REEs from the adsorbent. After six adsorption–desorption cycles, the MGP maintained a high adsorption performance up to cycle five before suffering a significant decrease in performance in cycle six. The effectiveness of MGP was also assessed for its applicability in recovering numerous REEs (La3+, Ce3+, Pr3+, Sm3+, and Nd3+) from real leachate from phosphogypsum wastes, and the highest recovery was achieved for Nd3+ (95.03%) followed by Ce3+ (86.33%). The operation was also feasible in the column presenting suitable values of the length of the mass transfer zone. The findings of this investigation indicate that MGP adsorbent prepared via a simple route has the potential for the recovery of REEs from synthetic and real samples in both batch and continuous operations modes.
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The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Dr. dos Reis thanks Bio4Energy—a Strategic Research Environment appointed by the Swedish government and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, for the funding support. This work was funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development/CNPq (Grant 405982/2022-4 and Grant 303992/2021-2). This study is supported via funding from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2023/R/1444).
Funding
This work was funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development/CNPq (Grant 405982/2022–4 and Grant 303992/2021–2). This study is supported via funding from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2023/1444).
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Conceptualization: GSR and GLD. Methodology: UL and DLR. Formal analysis and investigation: MLSO, VS and LFOS. Writing—original draft preparation: MFAT, LFOS, GSR, GLD, and UL. Writing—review and editing: LFOS, MMI, and GLD. Funding acquisition: MFAT, LFOS, SM, and GLD. Supervision: GLD. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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dos Reis, G.S., Srivastava, V., Taleb, M.F.A. et al. Adsorption of rare earth elements on a magnetic geopolymer derived from rice husk: studies in batch, column, and application in real phosphogypsum leachate sample. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 10417–10429 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-31925-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-31925-x