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Recovery of Rare Earth Elements Using Polystyrene and Polysilica Composites and Resulting Depositional Morphologies

Abstract

This paper examines the recovery of rare earth elements deposited on ion exchange resins. The formation of stabilized metallic structures led to composite particle alteration with polymeric structure, electron availability, pH, kinetics, and f-orbitals playing significant roles in the formation of an organometallic framework affecting access to bonding sites. The depositional morphology of metallic rare earth elements (REE) on the ion exchange resins also showed stabilized metallic structures that led to composite particle destruction. Oxidation/reduction conditions can be used as control mechanisms of the deposition morphologies.

Sean Dudley*, William Gleason, Maureen Chorney and Kennedy Southwick

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