Rare earth recycling: separation studies of dysprosium by carrier mediated hollow fibre supported liquid membrane

Rare earth elements plays critically important role in wide spectrum of advance technological fields such as phosphors, magnetic materials, catalyst and green energy etc. The unique magnetic and thermal properties of neodymium and dysprosium makes them ideal for making permanent magnets, which are being used in wind turbine generators, electric vehicle motors and hard disk drives. Due to environmental, geopolitical and mining concerns the supply of Dy, Nd has been affected and it has become inevitable to recover these rare earth values from used and end of life products. Various hydrometallurgical and pyro-metallurgical processes have been explored for the recycling of Nd and Dy from magnetic scraps. In hydrometallurgy, an important methodology i.e. liquid membrane methods offers separation schemes, this combines the characteristics of solvent extraction with solid membrane separation. Present studies evaluate applicability of hollow fibre membrane module in supported liquid membrane mode by employing 2-ethyl hexyl 2 ethyl hexyl phosphoric acid (EHEHPA) as a carrier solvent for the separation and transport of dysprosium from aqueous feed sources