• Resources Recycling
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2020

In this study, rare earth elements (REE) leaching from a refractory REE ore containing goethite as a major gangue mineral was conducted, introducing a two-stage method of chemical decomposition-acid leaching. At the chemical decomposition step, using one of alkaline agent, NaOH, the ore was decomposed, changing NaOH concentration from 20 to 50 wt% at 10% (w/w) of pulp density and the maximum temperature achieved without boiling at each NaOH concentration. With increasing NaOH concentration, light REE (Ce, La and Nd) and iron were concentrated in the solid phase which is the decomposed product, while aluminum (Al) and phosphorus (P) were removed to the liquid phase, and their concentrations in the solid phase were down to 0.96 and 0.17%, respectively. In addition, through XRD analysis, it was found that the crystallinity of goethite was considerably decreased. At the acid leaching step, the product decomposed by 50 wt% NaOH was leached at 3.0 M HCl and 80 ℃ for 3 hr, then the REE leaching efficiency was above 94% (Ce 80%), and the leaching efficiencies of Al and P were decreased to 12 and 0%, respectively. Therefore, in terms of both REE leaching efficiency and impurity removal, those decomposition and leaching conditions were chosen as optimum processing methods of the investigated material. In terms of REE leaching mechanism, because REE and iron leaching efficiencies showed the positive correlation each other, so it can be concluded that decreasing crystallinity of goethite affect the improvement of REE leaching.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.314-324
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• 2022

This study is aimed to design a membrane process that systematically removes contaminants including microplastics in sun-dried salt using a separation membrane. In this study, we selected the separation membrane material, pore size, and module suitable for the sun-dried salt fields, and proceeded with the experiments under the salt fields and laboratory conditions. A pilot plant was constructed and tested in our lab and in the actual saltern with the selected 200 kDa, 4 kDa ultrafiltration membranes, and 3 kDa nanofiltration membranes. Most of the impurities in the sea salt were 0.1 ㎛ in size, and more than 7 types of various microplastics were detected in the impurities. After that, as a result of checking the filtered water through the separation membrane process, no impurities were detected. As a result of comparing the existing sea salt component and the sea salt component prepared with separation membrane filtrate, impurities were effectively removed without change in the sea salt component.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.185-195
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• 2012

Due to the high reduction and sorption capacity as well as the large specific surface area, nanosized mackinawite (FeS) is useful in reductively transforming chlorinated organic pollutants and sequestering toxic metals and metalloids. Due to the dynamic nature in its colloid stability, however, nanosized FeS may be washed out with the groundwater flow or result in aquifer clogging via particle aggregation. Thus, these nanoparticles should be modified such as to be built into permeable reactive barriers. This study employed coating methods in efforts to facilitate the installation of permeable reactive barriers of nanosized mackinawite. In applying the methods, nanosized mackinawite was coated on non-treated silica sand (NTS) and chemically treated silica sand (CTS). For both silica sands, the maximum coating of mackinawite occurred around pH 5.4, the condition of which was governed by (1) the solubility of mackinawite and (2) the surface charge of both silica and mackinawite. Under this pH condition, the maximum coating by NTS and CTS were found to be 0.101 mmol FeS/g and 0.043 mmol FeS/g respectively, with such elevated coatings by NTS likely linked with impurities (e.g., iron oxides) on its surface. Arsenite sorption experiments were performed under anoxic conditions using uncoated silica sands and those coated with mackinawite at the optimal pH to compare their reactivity. At pH 7, the relative sorption efficiency between uncoated NTS and coated NTS changed with the initial concentration of arsenite. At the lower initial concentration, uncoated NTS showed the higher sorption efficiency, whereas at the higher concentration, coated NTS exhibited the higher sorption efficiency. This could be attributed to different sorption mechanisms as a function of arsenite concentration: the surface complexation of arsenite with the iron oxide impurity on silica sand at the low concentration and the precipitation as arsenic sulfides by reaction with mackinawite coating at the high concentration. Compared to coated NTS, coated CTS showed the lower arsenite removal at pH 7 due to its relatively lower mackinawite coating. Taken together, our results indicate that NTS is a more effective material than CTS for the coating of nanosized mackinawite.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.324-332
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• 2019

Most countries including Korea and Indonesia have strong policy for implementing biofuels like biodiesel. Shortage of the oil feedstock is the main barrier for increasing the supply of biodiesel fuel. In this study, in order to improve the stability of feedstock supply and lower the biodiesel production cost, the feasibility of biodiesel production using two types of Indonesian tropical crop oils, pressed at different harvesting times, were investigated. R. Trisperma oils, a high productive non-edible feedstocks, were investigated to produce biodiesel by esterification and transesterification because of it's high impurity and free fatty acid contents. the kindly provided oils from Indonesia were required to perform the filtering and water removal process to increase the efficiency of the esterificaton and transesterification reactions. The esterification used heterogeneous acid catalyst, Amberlyst-15. Before the reaction, the acid value of two types oil were 41, 17 mg KOH/g respectively. After the pre-esterification reaction, the acid value of oils were 3.7, 1.8 mg KOH/g respectively, the conversions were about 90%. Free fatty acid content was reduced to below 2%. Afterwards, the transesterification was performed using KOH as the base catalyst for transesterification. The prepared biodiesel showed about 93% of FAME content, and the total glycerol content was 0.43%. It did not meet the quality specification(FAME 96.5% and Total glycerol 0.24%) since the tested oils were identified to have a uncommon fatty acid, generally not found in vegetable oils, ${\alpha}$-eleostearic acid with much contents of 10.7~33.4%. So, it is required to perform the further research on reaction optimization and product purification to meet the fuel quality standards. So if the biodiesel production technology using un-utilized non-edible feedstock oils is successfully developed, stable supply of the feedstock for biodiesel production may be possible in the future.