Chemical Aspects of Scandium carbonate leaching from Red Muds

Red Muds (R.M.) – waste of bauxite reprocessing by the Bayer's method include many rare elements, such as Gallium, Titanium, Zirconium, Rare Earth Elements and Scandium, concentration of which in its reached 130 g/t. In the problem solving of Scandium extraction from R.M. get a two directions: immediate leaching of Scandium from R.M. and in passing Scandium recovery under complexing processing of R.M. The method of carbonate leaching of Scandium from R.M., which was work out in Institute of Solid State Chemistry Russian Academy of Sciences Urals Branch, include saturation by carbon dioxide of alkaline solutions, obtained after water process of R.M. and allow up to 20 % Scandium recovery in solutions. It is not effective for work out of technological scheme of R.M. processing. In recent paper, the chemical aspects of carbonate leaching of Scandium from R.M. in heterogeneous systems solid – liquid – gas carbon dioxide were investigated to determine of conditions for more Scandium recovery from R.M. It was shown, that Scandium leaching by aqueous sodium solutions without carbon dioxide gives small recovery yield and accompanied by alkaline hydrolysis under high pH in concentrated Na2CO3 solutions. Under saturation by carbon dioxide of carbonate R.M. pulp, the hydrolytic polymerization of hydroxocarbonates of Scandium and Aluminum in presence of carbonic acid proton take place. In the both process secondary precipitates are settle down and reduce of Scandium recovery yield. For increase of Scandium recovery from R.M. it is necessary to exclude the secondary precipitates under carbonate leaching with saturation by carbon dioxide.