SCRUBBING STUDY ON RARE EARTH LOADED ORGANIC FROM EXTRACTION PROCESS OF YTTRIUM

Abstract

Separation process of rare earth elements is normally accomplished using solvent extraction that consists of extraction, scrubbing stage and stripping stage. Since the separation of rare earth elements is difficult due to their chemical similarities, improvement of the process need to be done to increase separation factors and to reduce chemical consumption thus will reduce chemical waste. This study focused on scrubbing stage for extraction of yttrium from Malaysian Xenotime. The objective of this study is to find the best scrubbing agent in order to remove inorganic element from loaded organic phase as much as it can. Three different media were chosen as scrubbing agent which is deionized water, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate to scrub calcium, sulfur and chlorine produced from rare earth loaded organic solution. Results from X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) shows that 70°C deionized water with contact time of 10 minutes have a tendency to scrub most sulfur (15.2 ppm), chlorine (0.56 ppm) and calcium (26.2 ppm)from loaded organic solution.