Thermodynamic Investigation of the Reduction-Distillation Process for Rare Earth Metals Production

Owing to their high vapor pressure, the four rare earth metals samarium, europium, thulium, and ytterbium are produced by reduction-distillation whereby their oxides are reduced with metallic lanthanum in vacuo, and the produced metal is subsequently vaporized off. Here, we performed a thorough thermodynamic investigation to establish a fundamental understanding of the reduction-distillation process. Thermodynamic functions including vapor pressures, Gibbs free energies, and enthalpies of reaction were calculated and compared with available experimental data. Furthermore, the kinetics of the process was explored and theoretical evaporation rates were calculated from thermodynamic data. The thermodynamic model developed in this work can help optimize processing conditions to maximize the yield and improve the overall process.