Selective Sc recovery from rare earths in nitric acid medium by extraction chromatography

Watanabe, So  ; Suzuki, Hideya; Goto, Ichiro*; Kofuji, Hirohide  ; Matsumura, Tatsuro  

Chemical compounds containing scandium (Sc) are widely applied to various fields such as catalysts, alloys, lamps and etc. Sc is found in mineral ore, and it is necessary to develop efficient Sc separation and recovery technology for the industrial applications. So far, solvent extraction based processes were proposed as promising Sc recovery procedures. Our group has found that hexaoctyl nitrilotriacetic acid triamide (HONTA) has strong affinity to Sc. In this study, applicability of the extraction chromatography technology for the selective Sc recovery was experimentally evaluated through batch-wise adsorption/elution studies and column separation experiments.