Processes and Technologies for the Recycling of Spent Fluorescent Lamps

The growing industrial application of rare earth metals led to great interest in the new technologies for the recycling and recovery of REEs from diverse sources. This work reviews the various methods for the recycling of spent fluorescent lamps. The spent fluorescent lamps are potential source of important rare earth elements (REEs) such as: yttrium, terbium, europium, lanthanum and cerium. The characteristics of REEs properties and construction of typical fl uorescent lamps is described. The work compares also current technologies which can be utilized for an efficient recovery of REEs from phosphors powders coming from spent fluorescent lamps. The work is especially focused on the hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes. It was concluded that hydrometallurgical processes are especially useful for the recovery of REEs from spent fluorescent lamps. Moreover, the methods used for recycling of REEs are identical or very similar to those utilized for the raw ores processing.