Selective recovery of yttrium and ytterbium oxides from Abu Rusheid REEs concentrate via alkaline leaching and solvent extraction

الملخص EN

The REEs concentrate prepared from Abu Rusheid lamprophyre ore material is found to assay 44.65% Y2O3 and 13.87% Yb2O3 together with less amounts of 10 other REEs.

This concentrate has been subjected to alkaline leaching process using seven different alkali reagents (single or mixed).

From the obtained results, the mixed Na2CO3/ (NH4)HCO3 reagent has been able to leach up to 87.32 % of Yb and 98.73% of Y together with a minor amount of Eu ( 1.44) % .

Finally, TBP extractant has been used to separate highly pure Yb and Y concentrate oxides from the nitrate solution