Separation of rare earths in nitric acid medium by a novel silica-based pyridinium anion exchange resin

Abstract

To separate rare earths in nitric acid medium by anion exchange process, a novel silica-based macro-reticular anion exchange resin (SiPyR-N4) with pyridinium as functional group has been synthesized. It was found that the SiPyR-N4 resin exhibits a quite strong adsorption for some rare earths especially the light rare earth elements such as La, Ce, Pr, Nd and Pm whose distribution coefficients onto SiPyR-N4 reach 10–25 dm 3/kg-resin, which are much higher than the reported values for these elements with conventional anion exchange resins. The results from the column experiments show that the rare earths can be separated into the three groups: light, moderate and heavy rare earths and, a perfect separation between La–Pr group and Sm–Gd group can be achieved.