Leaching of Rare Earth Elements from Egyptian Western Desert Phosphate Rocks using HCl

Rare Earth Elements from the western desert phosphate rocks (Abu- Tartur phosphate rocks, Egypt) were leached using hydrochloric acid. The effect of hydrochloric acid concentration, solid to liquid ratio, contact time and leaching temperature on leaching efficiency were investigated. Moreover, the kinetics of the leaching process was studied as a function of temperature. Under optimum leaching conditions, including hydrochloric acid concentration (1 M), solid to liquid ratio (1/3), kinetics analyses showed that the reaction rate of leaching is controlled by inner diffusion which can be described by the shrinking- core model. The diffusion-controlled process is characteristic by activation energy obtained value (11.76 kJ mol-1).