Rationally designed nanotrap structures for efficient separation of rare earth elements over a single step

Qing-Hua Hu; An-Min Song; Xin Gao; Yu-Zhen Shi; Wei Jiang; Ru-Ping Liang; Jian-Ding Qiu

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-45810-1

Rationally designed nanotrap structures for efficient separation of rare earth elements over a single step

Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 20;15(1):1558. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45810-1.

Authors

Qing-Hua Hu^{1

2

3}, An-Min Song², Xin Gao², Yu-Zhen Shi², Wei Jiang², Ru-Ping Liang⁴, Jian-Ding Qiu^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Resources and Environment, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China. rpliang@ncu.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Resources and Environment, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, China. jdqiu@ncu.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China. jdqiu@ncu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Extracting rare earth elements (REEs) from wastewater is essential for the growth and an eco-friendly sustainable economy. However, it is a daunting challenge to separate individual rare earth elements by their subtle differences. To overcome this difficulty, we report a unique REE nanotrap that features dense uncoordinated carboxyl groups and triazole N atoms in a two-fold interpenetrated metal-organic framework (named NCU-1). Notably, the synergistic effect of suitable pore sizes and REE nanotraps in NCU-1 is highly responsive to the size variation of rare-earth ions and shows high selectivity toward light REE. As a proof of concept, Pr/Lu and Nd/Er are used as binary models, which give a high separation factor of SF_Pr/Lu = 796 and SF_Nd/Er = 273, demonstrating highly efficient separation over a single step. This ability achieves efficient and selective extraction and separation of REEs from mine tailings, establishing this platform as an important advance for sustainable obtaining high-purity REEs.

Abstract

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