High Yield, Economical and Environmentally Benign Production of Rare Earth Elements from Coal Ash [Abstract]
- Physical Sciences Inc., Andover, MA (United States)
Fly ash stored in landfills and ponds across the United States is an attractive, abundant domestic resource for the cost-effective recovery of rare earth elements (REE) and other critical minerals (CM). Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and its team members, Winner Water Services (WWS) and University of Kentucky/Center for Applied Energy Research (UK/CAER) successfully executed a multiphase program that developed and demonstrated pilot plant operations for cost-effective and environmentally-friendly production of rare earth element oxide (REO) concentrates, and the critical minerals scandium and aluminum (in the forms of salts or oxide products). We constructed and operated a sub-scale (0.5 kg/day) micropilot facility to demonstrate the key physical and chemical processing operations, predict yields, and troubleshoot process bottlenecks. The project team then designed, constructed and operated two decoupled pilot plant operations: (1) an operational pilot plant for physical separation processes with a capacity of 0.4 metric tons per day (tpd) where we optimized processes to produce selected ash fractions as the feedstock for chemical processing as well as valuable byproducts such as cement substitute, cenospheres, magnetic ash and secondary fuel carbon, and (2) an operational pilot plant for chemical processing with a capacity of 0.5 tpd that developed optimized processes for the production of: (a) REO concentrates, (b) critical minerals recovery (Sc, Al), and (c) beneficiated ash as valuable byproduct suitable for cement applications.
- Research Organization:
- Physical Sciences Inc., Andover, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- Contributing Organization:
- Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States). Center for Applied Energy Research Equinox Chemicals; Winner Water Services
- DOE Contract Number:
- FE0027167
- OSTI ID:
- 1860368
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-PSI-FE0027167; 1966-FinalReport-Abstract
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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