Separation of Dysprosium (Dy) from Rare Earth Hidroxide Using Precipitation Methods

Abstract

The separation process of Dysprosium (Dy) from other Rare Earth Elements (REE) in monazite was carried out considering various applications of Dy in high purity. The Dy elements can be used as a dopant in Thermoluminescence Detector (TLD) crystals to monitor the personnel dose of radiation workers. The separation process of Dy is hard to do due to the similarity of the physical and chemical properties of all REE. This research was conducted to separate Dy by a precipitation process at a certain pH. The feed used is Rare Earth Hydroxide (REOH) concentrate from a monazite processing. The variation of the precipitation used was pH 4.5 to pH 8.5 with 0.5 intervals. The highest precipitation of Dy with an efficiency of 24.47% was obtained at pH 8. Other REEs precipitated at pH 8.5, while the Dy was found the most in the filtrate.