Recovery of lanthanides from Abu Tartur phosphate rock, Egypt

In the present work, a process for the treatment of Abu Tartur phosphate ro ck for the recovery of lanthanides without interfering with the normal rout e proposed for fertilizer production, is proposed using HNO3 as a leaching agent. Further, an attempt was made to defluorinate the leach solution in o rder to upgrade the fertilizer and, at the same time, recover the fluorine. A significant benefit of Abu Tartur phosphate rock processes for the recov ery of the lanthanides lies in their relatively high content of lanthanides (averaging 0.11%), while the produced fertilizer would pollute the environ ment less with radioactive materials due to the low uranium content (averag ing 25 mg/kg). A further advantage of phosphate rock as a source of rare ea rth products is the absence of radioactive thorium, the safe disposal of wh ich is vexatious to monazite-based processes. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevie r Science B.V. All rights reserved.