For extracting of rare earth elements (REE) from the industrial wastes,
adsorption process is applied. Natural clinoptilolite was thermally treated and
used as an adsorbent for the removal of REE from byproducts residue of
phosphoric acid industry (Sample-I) as well as Abu-Rusheid Project (Sample-II)
in Egyptian Nuclear Materials Authority. The factors affected the adsorption
process were studied such as; effect of time, temperature, agitation speed, and
mass/volume (m/v), in addition to sequential chemical treatment during different
steps. The results showed that by using thermal clinoptilolite 87% and 91% of
REE were removed from the treated solutions of Sample-I, and Sample-II
respectively. The stripping of REE from clinoptilolite was carried out using
(0.5M) Na2CO3 for 30 minutes at room temperature, the stripping percent of rare
earth elements was achieved 95.8 % and 87.6 % for clinoptilolite bearing SampleI & that bearing Sample-II respectively.