Rare earth elements, known as industrial vitamins, are indispensable manufacturing materials for many high-tech devices such as mobile phones and computers. The reserves of rare earth elements in the world are not abundant, and they are unevenly distributed. Recently, American researchers published a research report in the online version of "Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics", saying that they have developed a method for extracting rare earth elements from industrial waste-phosphogypsum, or may ease the supply shortage of rare earth elements. Phosphogypsum is a waste produced from the production of phosphoric acid using phosphate ore, which contains a large amount of rare earth elements. Researchers estimate that the phosphogypsum produced in the world each year contains about 100,000 tons of rare earth elements, which is almost the same as the global annual output of rare earth oxides (126,000 tons). Although the global stock of phosphogypsum is huge, the stock in the United States alone exceeds 1 billion tons, but the effective utilization rate is very low. The huge amount of phosphogypsum waste not only occupies a lot of land, but also causes environmental pollution. How to effectively solve the problem of resource utilization of phosphogypsum has become a problem facing the industry. This time, in order to test whether rare earth elements can be extracted from phosphogypsum, a research team composed of researchers from institutions such as Idaho National Laboratory and Rutgers University doped yttrium, cerium, neodymium, and samarium in phosphogypsum , Europium and ytterbium, and other six rare earth elements, and then study the various schemes that can be used to extract rare earth elements. They found that a solution that utilizes a chemical mixture produced by Gluconobacter oxydans to recover rare earth elements has a significant effect. Gluconobacter is a common bacterium that can produce organic acids such as gluconic acid. Gluconic acid can dissolve the rare earth elements in the surrounding materials and dissolve them into the solution through a process called "biological leaching". The precipitated rare earth elements can be used for industrial production after purification. The researchers pointed out that the conventional method of extracting rare earth elements from ores will produce toxic substances and acidic pollutants. Their new method is less harmful to the environment and economically feasible. The huge stock of phosphogypsum in the world is a source of rare earth elements that cannot be ignored. If the new method of extracting rare earth elements from phosphogypsum can be industrialized, it will be enough to alleviate the shortage of rare earth supply in the world. (Reporter Liu Haiying) Expandable Container House,Buy Shipping Container Home,Expandable Container House With Ensuite,Prefab Expandable House Suzhou Daxiang Container House Co, Ltd , https://www.dx-house.com