The European Union has invested € 7 million in "Horizon 2020" to finance the development of technologies for extracting rare earth elements such as scandium (Sc) from industrial wastes and has successfully recycled rare earth elements from bauxite slag using ionic liquids. This is SCALE Of the project to industrialization-oriented, research team from Greece, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, 18 institutions in 10 countries, including 10 companies and 8 academic research institutions, covering the entire scandium value chain process.
Rare earth elements such as scandium can dramatically change the material properties and are very important in new materials and are key components in the production of solid oxide fuel cells and high-strength aluminum alloys for aerospace and 3D printing applications. In wind turbines, automobiles, Computers, smartphones and other high-tech products have an irreplaceable role to supply their limited supplies due to scandium scarcity and high production costs (currently produced in Asia and Russia) There is no manufacturer of scandium in Europe, but scandium There are many end-users. The SCALE project aims to develop technologies that extract scandium from European industrial waste to form a European supply chain that will ease Europe's dependence on imported rare earths.
Europe produces 5 million tons of bauxite slag per year in aluminum production and 1.4 million tons of acid waste in the production of titanium dioxide pigments. Scrapys in these industrial wastes can reach the recoverable levels if feasible extraction techniques. The purpose of the SCALE project is to develop innovative technologies to extract low levels of scandium from these industrial wastes in an economical and sustainable manner and to upgrade them to pure oxides, metals and alloys at low energy and material costs, Other rare earth elements are also extracted.
At present, Greek scientists have developed a simple method of dissolving and separating rare earth elements from bauxite slag, using an ionic liquid rather than a conventional solvent, which selectively leaches rare earth elements without dissolving the entire solid material. The soil slag is poured into the reactor containing the ionic liquid solution. After a few hours, the rare earth element can be completely dissolved in the ionic liquid, the ionic liquid can be restored to the reusable state by adding some acid in the filtered liquid, The remainder are rare earth-containing extracts, which work at higher temperatures because of the non-flammable and non-volatile nature of ionic liquids, without causing a fire or health hazard.
