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Recovery of rare earth elements from acid mine drainage by ion exchange

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posted on 2020-01-14, 11:55 authored by E. C. B. Felipe, K. A. Batista, A. C. Q. Ladeira

The current work addresses the study of the recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from acid mine water by using cationic exchange resin. The acid water was obtained from a closed uranium mine in Brazil. Ion exchange experiments were carried out in batch with three different resins at 25 ± 0.5°C and pH values 1.4, 2.4 and 3.4 (natural). Data were adjusted to the Langmuir equation in order to calculate the maximum loading capacity (qmax) of the resins. The results of qmax for individual REE revealed that the resins present higher loading for La in detriment to the other REE. The Dowex 50WX8 and Lewatit MDS 200 H resins demonstrated favourable sorption profiles to REE, evidenced by values of equilibrium factor (RL) and higher values of the Langmuir constants (b). The separation factors (αHREELREE) indicates that resins are more selective for light REE at all pH studied. The selectivity of the resins for the REE can be described as light REE > heavy REE. The pH 1.4 and 3.4 are more favourable for the recovery of REE.

Funding

This work was supported by Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear: [Grant Number 1]; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico: [Grant Number 3]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior: [Grant Number 5]; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos: [Grant Number 4]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais: [Grant Number 2].

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