Effect of Operating Conditions on Separation of Rare Earth Elements by Countercurrent Multistage Extraction

摘要

Rare earth elements (REEs) are used for high end products and its demand is increasing. For the commercial production, the REEs separation is commonly applied by countercurrent multi-stage extraction, and in advance the hydrogen in extractant is substituted by sodium before the reaction [1] to control pH. In this study the liquid-liquid equilibrium was measured and separation was calculated to investigate the effects of substitution on the amount of required solvent.