Separation and quantitative estimation of rare earths in monazite sand by electrochromatography

Bioleaching of rare earth elements from monazite sand.

Three fungal strains were found to be capable of bioleaching rare earth elements from monazite, a rare earth phosphate mineral, utilizing the monazite as a phosphate source and releasing rare earth cations into solution. These organisms include one known phosphate solubilizing fungus, Aspergillus niger ATCC 1015, as well as two newly isolated fungi: an Aspergillus terreus strain ML3-1 and a Pae...

Separation of rare earths by split-anion extraction

Separation of rare earths and nickel by solvent extraction with two mutually immiscible ionic liquids

It is shown that rare earths can be distributed between two immiscible ionic liquids, allowing the transfer of the rare earths from one ionic liquid phase to another. The ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride was used as the initial feed phase and the ionic liquid trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium bis(2,4,4trimethylpentyl)phosphinate (Cyphos IL 104) as the extracting phase. The rare e...

Separation of cerium from other rare earths by ignition of the nitrates

Cerium was separated from the light rare earths by ignition of the nitrates whereby the cerous nitrate was decomposed to eerie oxide. Small scale investigations were made using sodium nitrate and magnesium nitrate hexahydrate as fluxes. A cost estimate based on data from the small scale investigations showed the sodium nitrate ignition to be more economical; therefore, bench scale investigation...

Extractive metallurgy of rare earths

Although most of the rare earth metals were discovered in Sweden, the industrialisation started in the Austrian Empire. This was due to the fact that the Swedish chemist Jons Fridrik Bahr (1815–1875) from Uppsala went to Heidelberg in Germany in 1855 to analyse some rare earth minerals by the spectroscope discovered recently by chemistry professor Robert Bunsen (1811– 1899) and his colleague ph...