A New combination Process for Production of Europium Oxide of Fluorescence Grade

In this paper, an attempt is made to explore a new process for the production of high purity europium oxide. The process developed consists of a zinc reduction of europium to divalent state on a zinc column, follow by a single stage solvent extraction to remove major part of the trivalent rare earths, leaving the divalent europium in the raffinate, which is then subjected to extraction chro-matographic separation on a D2EHPA loaded resin column. Without the use of expensive chelating agents, as in the case of classical ion exchange technique, simple elution with dilute hydrochloric acid gives very high purity europium. Chemical analysis indicates that the separation from its neighboring rare earths is sharp enough to warrant its use in the preparation of various fluorescent materials. All trial runs in the laboratory achieved yields above 97%. Raw materials required are easily available in the market. Its potential for commercial production is quite apparent.