Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Yttrium extraction from soils by electric field assisted mining applying the evolutionary operation technique

2019; Elsevier BV; Volume: 227; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.077

1879-1786

Carolina Mocelin Gomes Pires, Haroldo de Araújo Ponte, Jucélio Tomás Pereira, Maria José Jerônimo de Santana Ponte,

Geophysical and Geoelectrical Methods

Yttrium is an element of the Rare Earth group. It is mainly used in flat panel displays, alloys, and lasers. It is considered a critical element and there is a concern to meet the global consumer demand. Yttrium is normally available in the mineral form in the earth's crust, and due to the high energy and environmental impact of conventional mining processes, electric field assisted mining arises as an alternative in yttrium extraction. This technique uses electrokinetic phenomena for species' extraction aiming at reducing the environmental impact and energy consumption. The present paper aims at extracting Y3+ by an electric field assisted mining process, using the evolutionary operation technique and response surface methodology to investigate the influence of the electric field and electrolyte concentration variables. The results show that the synergetic operation between a low concentration of acetic acid (0.1 mol L−1) and a high electric field (54.54 V m−1) favored the migration flow of Y3+, resulting in a 42.6% recovery efficiency in the cathode chamber for the 72 h of experiment, with an energy consumption of 259.7 kWh kg−1 of Y3+ removed. Thus, electric field assisted mining is shown to be an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to Y3+ mining.