Supercritical carbon dioxide/nitrogen/air extraction with multistage stripping enables selective recovery of rare earth elements from coal fly ashes

Abstract

Rare earth elements (REEs) are widely used in electronic devices and renewable energy technology, but their supply is geopolitically-limited and they are extracted by environmentally unsustainable mining practices. Coal fly ash (CFA), which is mostly discarded as waste, has recently gained attention as a potential low-grade REE source, motivating the development of greener and highly specific processes for recovering and enriching REEs. Here we present a proof-of-concept for a novel REE extraction process in which supercritical fluid enhances the ability of tributyl phosphate (TBP) to selectively extract REEs directly from solid CFA matrices. For the first time, we show that supercritical nitrogen and supercritical air can work like supercritical carbon dioxide for selective extraction. Moreover, using a prototype multistage stripping process with an aqueous solution, we collected REEs with concentrations up to 21.4 mg L⁻¹ from the extractant. Our final products contain up to 6.47% REEs, whereas the coal fly ash source initially contained only 0.0234% REEs. Using supercritical fluid, our novel process can recover valuable and critical resources from materials previously considered to be waste.