Non-ammonia enrichment of rare earth by magnesium oxide from rare earth leaching liquor in magnesium salt system

In order to solve the problem of ammonia-nitrogen pollution in the enrichment process of the ionadsorption type rare earth ore,the technology of non-ammonia precipitation with magnesium oxide precipitant was carried out.It is determined that the rare earth precipitation efficiency is 99.6%and the purity of rare earth concentrates is only 85.89 wt%under the optimum precipitation conditions.And the contents of MgO,SO3 and Al2O3 in the rare earth concentrates are 5.12 wt%,6.77 wt%and 1.78 wt%,respectively.Furthermore,the thermo-decomposition process of precipitates was investigated by TGDSC,XRD and FI-IR.The thermal decomposition process consists of two stages:the dehydration of rare earth hydroxide and alkaline rare earth sulfate within 900℃and the thermal decomposition of RE2O2SO4 at 900-1300℃.Therefore,a high-temperature calcinations method for removing SO3 from precipitates is proposed.When the precipitates are calcined at 1300℃for 2 h,the rare earth concentrates with a purity of 92.03 wt%can be acquired.Moreover,the content of SO3 in the concentrate is only 0.46 wt%.In the MgO precipitation and high-temperature calcinations process,the raw material cost is low and the quality of rare earth concentrates is acceptable.It could have great significance for nonammonia enrichment of rare earth from the rare earth leaching liquor,and finally solve the problem of ammonia nitrogen in the extraction process of the ion-adsorption type rare earth ore within magnesium salt system.