Tool and Workflow for Systematic Design of Reactive Extraction for Separation and Purification of Valuable Components

Rare-earth metals, such as La(III), Nd(III), Eu(III), or Y(III), which are recycled from electronic waste in urban mining, can be separated and purified utilizing reactive extraction. Process development and equipment design then aim to determine the optimal reactive extractant, diluent, any additional components, equipment type, structure of the equipment internals, as well as all process parameters. This requires a deep understanding of the chemistry of the underlying complexing reactions as well as engineering expertise on extraction-process development as well as equipment design. To aid this design task, a tool was developed based on cascaded option trees, which combines the expertise from both sciences. Process design is supported by a prototypic workflow and by systematically structured and quantitative information on the underlying thermodynamics. The method is also applicable for extraction of diluted components from aqueous solutions, as encountered in fermentation broth in the context of bioeconomy. The method will be presented and applied to examples from urban mining.