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Selective Reduction and Separation of Europium from Mixed Rare-Earth Oxides Recovered from Waste Fluorescent Lamp Phosphors

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REWAS 2019

Part of the book series: The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series ((MMMS))

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Abstract

Europium is vital to the production of high technology products. In recent years, the worldwide market for europium has been controlled by primary sources in China. However, recycling europium from waste fluorescents is a strategy to supply europium. Waste phosphor powder is recovered from recycled lamps and retorted, sieved, and leached to produce europium and yttrium rich concentrate. Europium is separated from yttrium by reducing Eu(III) to Eu(II) by selective reduction with zinc and precipitated as europium (II) sulfate from solution via sulfuric acid. After building upon previous work and removing unit operations, the optimized conditions for europium sulfate were determined. The effects of varying the entrance pH , quantity of sulfate, choice of inert gas, selective reduction time, and precipitation time were studied upon the final grade and recovery of europium (II) sulfate. The final purity of 93.84% of europium (II) sulfate with a recovery of 84.2% was obtained after using an entrance pH equal to 2.5, 5 times the stoichiometric ratio of sulfate, a 2 h precipitation time, and 30 min selective reduction time.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA, 01609, USA

    Mark L. Strauss & Brajendra Mishra

  2. Colorado School of Mines (Kroll Institute of Extractive Metallurgy), 1500 Illinois Street, Golden, CO, 80401, USA

    Gerard P. Martins

Authors
  1. Mark L. Strauss
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  2. Brajendra Mishra
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  3. Gerard P. Martins
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark L. Strauss .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Alfred University, Alfred, NY, USA

    Gabrielle Gaustad

  2. Gopher Resource, Eagan, MN, USA

    Camille Fleuriault

  3. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Mertol Gökelma

  4. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    John A. Howarter

  5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Randolph Kirchain

  6. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Kaka Ma

  7. Umicore, Olen, Belgium

    Christina Meskers

  8. IND LLC, South Jordan, UT, USA

    Neale R. Neelameggham

  9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Elsa Olivetti

  10. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Adam C. Powell

  11. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Fiseha Tesfaye

  12. Johan Gadolin Process Chem Ctr, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Dirk Verhulst

  13. ArcelorMittal Global R&D, Schererville, IN, USA

    Mingming Zhang

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© 2019 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

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Strauss, M.L., Mishra, B., Martins, G.P. (2019). Selective Reduction and Separation of Europium from Mixed Rare-Earth Oxides Recovered from Waste Fluorescent Lamp Phosphors. In: Gaustad, G., et al. REWAS 2019. The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10386-6_35

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