Feasibility study recovery of lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, and yttrium from Malaysia saprolite by HDEHP-HCl cascade fractional solvent extraction

Malaysia’s rare earth elements from saprolite are highly potential to be recovered as an alternative resource to China’s rare earth supply due to its high concentration of non-radioactive rare earth elements source. Separation of high-purity lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), and yttrium (Y) obtained from Malaysian sources required multi-stages of solvent extraction (SX) and a multi-separation circuit. A massive number of multi-stage fractional SX is necessarily attributable to the similarity of physiochemical properties between the adjacent elements. Process design, data analysis, and prediction of process behavior of rare earth element extraction are multifaceted tasks. Process simulation is an ideal candidate for this complex task. The application of Xu’s cascade extraction principles for process simulation of separation of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Y was discussed in this paper. A simulation model of HDEHP-HCl cascade fractional SX had been used to simulate the recovery of the elements from Malaysia saprolite. All the process properties, estimation of separation stages, purity, and recovery behavior were determined by Xu’s cascade extraction principles. Process simulation results mapped out the space-feasible cascade fractional SX circuits and identified the optimal design parameter required to achieve the targeted purity and recovery. Material distribution and balance tables were used to evaluate the separation of the elements in each stage from the initial stage to the final stage. The production output was measured by predicting the output of the extraction of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, and Y. Even though it lacked an optimization attribute, it is crucial to get an insight into the recovery worthiness of the elements from a particular source. The process simulation predicted the separation stages (extraction and scrubbing stages), the recovery behavior of each circuit, and the production output of La, Ce, Nd, Pr, and Y.