RT Journal Article
T1 Pyrometallurgical Treatment of Apatite Concentrate with the Objective of Rare Earth Element Recovery: 												Part II
A1 Kennedy, Mark William
A1 Sun, Tianming
A1 Yurramendi, Lourdes
A1 Arnout, Sander
A1 Aune, Ragnhild E.
A1 Tranell, Gabriella
AB Apatite, Ca5(PO4)3F, is a useful raw material for the production of both elemental phosphorus and phosphoric acid, and the mine tailings present at Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) in Kiruna, Sweden, represent a significant potential European source of apatite if upgraded to a concentrate. In the present study, pilot apatite concentrate made from the LKAB tailings has been pyrometallurgically treated using carbon to extract phosphorus without fluxing at temperatures exceeding 1800 °C, with the ultimate objective of recovery of rare earth elements (REEs) from the resulting slag/residue phases. Experimental behavior has been modeled using equilibrium thermodynamic predictions performed using HSC®. A process is proposed, and mass–energy balance presented, for the simultaneous production of P4 and CaC2 (ultimately for acetylene, C2H2, and PVC production) from apatite, producing a lime residue significantly enriched in REEs. Possible implications to kiln-based processing of apatite are also discussed.
SN 2199-3823
YR 2017
FD 2017-12-01
LK https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3405
UL https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3405
LA eng
NO Kennedy , M W , Sun , T , Yurramendi , L , Arnout , S , Aune , R E & Tranell , G 2017 , ' Pyrometallurgical Treatment of Apatite Concentrate with the Objective of Rare Earth Element Recovery : Part II ' , Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy , vol. 3 , no. 4 , pp. 846-857 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-017-0148-y
NO Publisher Copyright: © 2017, The Author(s).
NO Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank their co-participants in this EU-funded project (Grant FP7-603564—REE-cover) for their assistance in performing the present work. Thanks are given to J.R. Tolchard for help during the XRD analyses and D. Slizovskiy for experimental assistance. The second author would also like to thank the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) for funding his PhD research.
DS TECNALIA Publications
RD 30 jul 2024