NADİR TOPRAK ELEMENTLERİNİN KAZANIMI İÇİN POTANSİYEL BİR KAYNAK: KÖMÜR YIKAMA TESİSİ ATIKLARI

China is the leading country in rare earth elements (REE) production and reserves; therefore, the other countries need resources in terms of high technology raw materials for possible restrictions. For this reason, the tendency of high technology producing REE supply has been increasing in recent years and they are directed to secondary resources to meet this demand. These resources consist of the wastes of coal-fired thermal power plants, tailings of ore enrichment facilities, by-products of mine sites where phosphate production is made, and electronic wastes. Parallel to the developing industry in the world, our rapidly developing and the growing country also increases the variety of minerals used in the industry, making it necessary to determine and reveal our underground resources more effectively. Coal reserves are an indispensable, reliable, and cheap energy source for our country and it is very important to create technologies that will enable the selective recovery of coal and REE from coal by-products by considering its environmental and industrial effects. Studies in the literature show that coal and coal byproducts have a significant REE content. Within the scope of this study, information about the advantages of REE production from secondary sources, the importance of REE recovery from coal and its by-products, and the applied methods are presented for high technology-producing countries in the global market.