Selective Extraction of Rare Earth Elements from Phosphoric Acid by Ion Exchange Resins

Rare earth elements (REE) are present at low concentrations (hundreds of ppm) in phosphoric acid solutions produced by the leaching of phosphate ores by sulfuric acid. The strongly acidic and complexing nature of this medium, as well as the presence of metallic impurities (including iron and uranium), require the development of a particularly cost effective process for the selective recovery of REE. Compared to the classical but costly solvent extraction, liquid-solid extraction using commercial chelating ion exchange resins could be an interesting alternative. Among the different resins tested in this paper (Tulsion CH-93, Purolite S940, Amberlite IRC-747, Lewatit TP-260, Lewatit VP OC 1026, Monophos, Diphonix,) the aminophosphonic IRC-747, and aminomethylphosphonic TP-260 are the most promising. Both of them present similar performances in terms of maximum sorption capacity estimated to be 1.8 meq/g dry resin and in adsorption kinetics, which appears to be best explained by a moving boundary model controlled by particle diffusion.