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An alkaline fusion mechanism for aluminate rare earth phosphor: cation–oxoanion synergies theory

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Abstract

Waste aluminate rare earth phosphor is an important rare earth elements (REEs) secondary resource, which mainly consists of BaMgAl10O17:Eu2+ (BAM) and CeMgAl11O19:Tb3+ (CMAT). Alkaline fusion process is widely used to recycle REEs from aluminate phosphor, but the related theory remains imperfect. In this paper, a series of alkaline fusion experiments of CMAT were performed to describe the phase change law of CMAT reactions. Based on comprehensive analysis, cation–oxoanion synergies theory (COST) was proposed to explain the aluminate phosphor structure damage. On the mirror plane of aluminate phosphor crystal structure, alkali metal cations (Na+, K+) would substitute rare earth ions, while free oxoanion (OH−, CO32−, O22−) can combine with rare earth ions. These two ionic forces ensure that rare earth ions can be substituted by cations. Then, the structure is decomposed. Morphological analysis shows that observable expression of COST can be described by shrinking core model after simplification. Reaction rate constant calculated indicates that the reaction degree is nanometers per second. COST provides a more complete mechanism, and it can help improve rare earth recycling technology furtherly.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U1360202, 51472030, 51672024 and 515102014).

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Yi-Fan Liu, Shen-Gen Zhang, Bo Liu & Han-Lin Shen

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  1. Yi-Fan Liu
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  2. Shen-Gen Zhang
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Correspondence to Shen-Gen Zhang.

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Liu, YF., Zhang, SG., Liu, B. et al. An alkaline fusion mechanism for aluminate rare earth phosphor: cation–oxoanion synergies theory. Rare Met. 38, 299–305 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-017-0898-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-017-0898-5

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