SESSION: MineralWedPM3-R5 |
Anastassakis International Symposium (10th Intl. Symp. on Sustainable Mineral Processing) |
Wed. 23 Oct. 2024 / Room: Lida | |
Session Chairs: Ori Lahav; Paul Chatzantourian; Student Monitors: TBA |
This presented work will introduce a new method for efficiently and selectively extracting pure RbCl(s) from Na+ and K+ enriched brines emanating from the phosphoric acid production industry. Utilizing the ion exchange properties of self-synthesized PES coated Zn-Hexa-Cyanoferrate (PES-Zn-HCF) material, the approach enables effective Rb+ adsorption followed by stepwise, selective desorption. The process involves passing Rb+-containing brines through a column filled with PES-Zn-HCF beads, followed by chromatography-based separation between Rb+ and Na+/K+ using a second column pre-adsorbed with NH4+. A 0.05M NH4+-solution is initially used to extract Na+ and K+ from the first column, retaining a small Rb+ mass, partly re-adsorbed in the second column. After ensuring that the eluent solution flowing out of the column is devoid of Na+ and K+, the 0.05 M NH4Cl passage is ceased and a 1 M NH4+-solution is now pumped in to extract the remaining Rb+. This solution undergoes water evaporation followed by NH3/HCl sublimation/deposition, resulting in the production of a pure RbCl(s) product and in the parallel recycling of the NH4Cl salt that is used as eluent. The study employs theoretical simulations validated by empirical results to demonstrate the method's feasibility as well as a detailed cost assessment, showing the concept to be highly cost effective.