RE:Extracting REE from Fertilizer By-productHi Dragon,
A couple of years back I did a consulting job on removal of REEs from phosphogypsum. So not a new idea. And not an easy task!
It can be said that it takes a lot of enthalpy to overcome entropy. In other words, extracting an element or compound from a mixture in which it is present at low concentrations is generally very, very difficult. Sometimes you can use a trick - it's magnetic in a mixture of non-magnetic materials. Or it's quite dense, like gold. Maybe it has special surface properties. Gravity separation, magnetic separation, froth flotation. And so forth. So far, no simple tricks for REEs. But keep an eye out for lanmodulin approaches.