A Novel Process for the Extraction and Separation of High-Purity Scandium and Rare Earths from Titanium Dioxide Acid Wastes

In this project, an advanced simulated moving bed technology will be used to produce selectively and economically efficiently scandium and potential rare earth elements from TiO2 acidic tailings. This technology will utilize proprietary adsorbents as solid phase extractants and eliminate the use of environmentally-unfriendly organic solvents. The adsorbents are capable of selectively adsorbing and separating scandium and rare earth elements from complex acidic solutions. By tuning and optimizing experimental process settings and operating conditions, individually separated, high purity scandium and rare earth salts will be recovered and separated from acidic titanium oxide tailings. In Phase I, the project team will mainly (1) develop a process flow sheet and design a micro-pilot unit, capable of producing at least 2 kg of scandium oxide and additional elements, (2) produce laboratory quantities of at least scandium oxide at 99.9% purity and potentially additional REE salts, and (3) develop cost structures for the proposed technology at commercial scale, including required capital expenditures and per unit production costs. It is anticipated that the production costs of individually separated, high purity scandium and rare earth salts using this technology would be much lower than conventional technologies and processes. The success of this project would shorten the technological gap in the domestic critical elements supply chain. Also, this technology can be commercially applied to separate and recover critical elements from a variety of mining and industrial wastes. It will offer a promising solution to boost domestic critical element production and to create new manufacturing jobs.