The recovery of rare earth elements (REE) in coal wastes with high efficiency by using physical and physicochemical method has becoming of utmost importance considering its contribution to the country's economic and environmental benefits.
It is known that coal contains rare earth elements (REE) in addition to many trace metals, and the majority of these elements are found together with inorganic minerals in coal. In the present literature, the main and trace elements in the coals in Turkiye were examined and it was determined that REEs are in the inorganic parts of the coal, therefore they tend to remain in the coal ash. In addition to the contribution that the recovery of valuable parts from coal wastes will bring to the country's economy, it is also of great environmental importance. In our country, the ashes of thermal power plants and the amount of waste from coal washing facilities are very high and will become a bigger problem in the future. Effective carbon separation and pre-enrichment of REEs prior to hydrometallurgical processes will increase metal recovery efficiencies, minimize operating costs, reduce energy costs, and reduce acid consumption in dissolution processes.
In this project, it is aimed to recover REEs in coal wastes with high efficiency by using physical and physicochemical methods, which have simple, economic and environmental advantages, and then to apply hydrometallurgical methods to this obtained pre-concentrate with high metal content. In addition, it is aimed to produce a product that can be evaluated in a thermal power plant with the decarbonization process, which must be done before REEs recovery. The most appropriate process flow chart will be created after the results obtained by direct dissolution processes and its application to the pre-concentrate are compared in terms of metal content and recovery efficiency. In the final stage of the project, further purification studies will be carried out from enriched concentrates by membrane processes.
The aim of this project is to recover the carbon, which is especially in the fine size range, in the waste fields and storage pools of washery and thermal power plants, and then to obtain REEs, which has high contents in the inorganic part, by economic and environmental processes. Within the scope of the project, the REE contents of the representative samples were obtained by visiting the coal washing facilities and thermal power plants in the Manisa/Soma and Kütahya/Tunçbilek regions. Experiments related to preparation and beneficiation will be carried out in ITU Mineral Processing Engineering Laboratories, and the purification of REEs by membrane processes will be carried out in National Membrane Technologies Research Center (MEM-TEK) Laboratories in ITU.
