Recovery of scandium, yttrium and lanthanides from titanium ore

Abstract

A process for extracting scandium from titanium ore includes the steps of: feeding the titanium ore to a fluidized bed chlorinator at about 1000.degree. C. to produce a vaporous (generally titanium and possible iron chlorides) phase and a scandium-containing residue; and recovering the scandium from the residue. In one practice, the scandium is recovered by leaching the residue with aqueous acid (e.g. HCl) to produce a scandium-containing aqueous solution, followed by contacting the aqueous solution with a polyalkyl phosphate-containing organic phase, the polyalkyl phosphate (e.g. tributyl phosphate) extracting scandium into the organic phase, followed by scandium precipitation by an ammonium addition to produce a scandium hydroxide precipitate and the scandium hydroxide is calcined, whereby scandium is recovered as an oxide. The residue generally also contains yttrium and lanthanides, and the yttrium and lanthanides can also be recovered from the residue as a part of the scandium recovery process. In another practice, the scandium is recovered by leaching the residue with an alcohol such as methanol to produce a scandium-containing alcohol solution and then contacting the alcohol solution with oxalic acid to precipitate oxalates of scandium, thorium, and lanthanides.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.