A Simple Process for the Recovery of Rare Earth Elements and Iron from Sulfuric Acid Leaching Solution of NdFeB Magnets by Double Salt Precipitation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recovery of rare earth elements (REEs) from spent NdFeB magnets is important to meet the increasing demand for magnets and high-tech applications. In general, pretreatments of spent NdFeB magnets are necessary to recover REEs such as Nd, Pr, and Ce from the magnets. In this work, a simple process was proposed to recover REEs without any pretreatment of NdFeB magnets by using precipitation of REE(III) double salt. The correlations among several variables on the precipitation of REE(III) double salt were investigated by using synthetic solutions such as the molar ratio of Na(I) and sulfuric acid to Nd(III), the concentration of Nd(III) and Fe(III). The REES and iron present in NdFeB magnets were completely dissolved in 2 M H2SO4 solution at room temperature. The dissolved REE(III) ions were then directly separated by precipitation of double salt when Na2SO4 was added at 80°C. After REEs precipitation, the addition of iron powder to the filtrate at room temperature reduced Fe(III) to Fe(II) and removed a small amount of Cu(II) and Co(II) by cementation. Then Fe(II) and Na2SO4 were separated by precipitation of Fe(OH)2 when solution pH was adjusted to 8. The conditions for the precipitation of Nd(III) double salt were thermodynamically verified. Mass balance of continuous experiments indicated that it was possible to recover REEs and iron with high purity by the proposed process in this work.