Gadolinium Enrichment in Association with the Magnetic Fraction of 1 Fly Ash: Real or an Illusion?

Authors

James C. Hower, University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, 7 Lexington, KY 40511, USA; University of Kentucky Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Lexington, KY 40506, 10 USA
John G. Groppo, University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, 7 Lexington, KY 40511, USA; University of Kentucky Department of Mining Engineering, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
Dali Qian, University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, 7 Lexington, KY 40511, USA; University of Kentucky, Electron Microscopy Center, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
Nicolas J. Briot, University of Kentucky, Electron Microscopy Center, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
Tonya D. Morgan, University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, 7 Lexington, KY 40511, USA
Shelley D. Hopps, University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, 7 Lexington, KY 40511, USA
Elizabeth Cantando, National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology (NanoEarth), Virginia Tech, 17 1991 Kraft Drive, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA; Kollmorgen, Radford, VA 24141, USA

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Gadolinium, and possibly praseodymium, are relatively enriched in the magnetic 24 fractions of Class F fly ashes from Central Appalachian coal sources. Although the enrichment is 25 evident in the inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) 26 determinations of the rare earth content, transmission electron microscopy–energy dispersive x-27 ray spectroscopy (TEM-EDS) examination of the fly ash fails to show the sites of the Gd or Pr. 28 This apparent lack of correlation could be due to the inability of the EDS to detect low 29 concentrations of the rare earth elements definitively; interferences in the analytics, leading to 30 false positives in the chemical analysis; or the overlap of the energies of Gd and/or Pr with more 31 abundant elements, leading to inaccurate negative results.

DOI

https://doi.org.10.4177/001c.34170

Volume

12

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Recommended Citation

Hower, James, John Groppo, Dali Qian, Nicolas Briot, Tonya Morgan, Shelley Hopps, and Elizabeth Cantando. 2022. “Gadolinium Enrichment in Association with the Magnetic Fraction of Fly Ash: Real or an Illusion?” Coal Combustion and Gasification Products, September. https://doi.org/10.4177/001c.34170.