Treatment of exhaust fluorescent lamps to recover yttrium: Experimental and process analyses

Highlights: → Recovery of yttrium from spent fluorescent lamps by sulphuric acid leaching. → The use of sulphuric acid allows to reduce calcium dissolutions. → Main contaminant of fluorescent powder are Si, Pb, Ca and Ba. → Hydrated yttrium oxalate, recovered by selective precipitation, is quite pure (>90%). → We have studied the whole process for the treatment of dangerous waste (plant capability). - Abstract: The paper deals with recovery of yttrium from fluorescent powder coming from dismantling of spent fluorescent tubes. Metals are leached by using different acids (nitric, hydrochloric and sulphuric) and ammonia in different leaching tests. These tests show that ammonia is not suitable to recover yttrium, whereas HNO3 produces toxic vapours. A full factorial design is carried out with HCl and H2SO4 to evaluate the influence of operating factors. HCl and H2SO4 leaching systems give similar results in terms of yttrium extraction yield, but the last one allows to reduce calcium extraction with subsequent advantage during recovery of yttrium compounds in the downstream. The greatest extraction of yttrium is obtained by 20% w/v S/L ratio, 4 N H2SO4 concentration and 90 deg. C. Yttrium and calcium yields are nearly 85% and 5%, respectively. The analysis of variance shows that acid concentration alone and interaction between acid and pulp density have a significant positive effect on yttrium solubilization for both HCl and H2SO4 medium. Two models are empirically developed to estimate yttrium and calcium concentration during leaching. Precipitation tests demonstrate that at least the stoichiometric amount of oxalic acid is necessary to recover yttrium efficiently and a pure yttrium oxalate n-hydrate can be produced (99% grade). The process is economically feasible if other components of the fluorescent lamps (glass, ferrous and non-ferrous scraps) are recovered after the equipment dismantling and valorized, besides the cost that is usually paid to recycling companies for collection, treatment or final disposal of such fluorescent powders.