Separation and purification of Yb <sub>2</sub> O <sub>3</sub> by ion exchange chromatography and preparation of ultra‐high purity Yb <sub>2</sub> O <sub>3</sub>
Xijuan Pan, Zhiqing Yang, Yang Xu, Meng Wang, Xiaowei Huang, Zongyu Feng, Qiang Zhong, Xin-Lin Peng
Abstract
Abstract Ultra‐high purity Yb 2 O 3 is the critical material of many high‐tech materials such as laser glass and fiber, in which impurities seriously affect the laser color quality, intensity and power. In order to reduce the influence of impurities on the properties of laser materials, the purification process of Yb 2 O 3 was studied by comparing two kinds of resins (RT‐1 and RS‐1) using improved ion‐exchange chromatography (IEC) method. In this study, through the synergistic improvement of resin structure and eluting system, the environmental pollution caused by ammonia water in the traditional IEC method was reduced, and the requirements of high temperature and pressure were cut. The ion exchange behavior and impurity removal mechanism in the resin column during the loading and eluting process were compared and analyzed. The experimental results show that RS‐1 resin is all superior to RT‐1 resin in elements selectivity, ion exchange capacity and impurities removal rate. After separation and purification by IEC with RS‐1 resin, the total removal rate of rare earth impurities was 77.59% and that of non‐rare earth impurities was 95.86% when Yb recovery was more than 70%, both higher than that of RT‐1 resin (73.26% and 83.18%). This indicates that the improved IEC method is very effective in separating and removing different metal impurities from Yb 2 O 3 . The pilot test results of IEC method separating and purifying Yb 2 O 3 with RS‐1 resin show that the purity of Yb 2 O 3 can be increased from 99.9929% to 99.9997% by IEC method. It has exhibited huge potential of preparing ultra‐high purity Yb 2 O 3 , especially the deep removal of non‐rare earth impurities.