Ion-adsorbed rare-earth minerals often contain high proportions
of yttrium; it is a technical challenge to separate yttrium from rare-earth
elements (REEs). For the purpose of separating yttrium effectively,
a novel ionic liquid [trioctylmethylammonium][(2,6-dimethylheptyl
propionate] ([N1888][POPA]) was prepared to separate Y
from heavy rare-earth elements (HREEs). The thermodynamic data of
the separation process was studied systematically. The extraction
mechanism of [N1888][POPA] was demonstrated to be ion association,
which conduces to avoid the saponification wastewater. [N1888][POPA] revealed better selectivities for Y and other HREEs (Ho–Lu);
also, deionized water could be utilized for stripping the HREE-loaded
organic phase. On this basis, the fractional extraction process based
on [N1888][POPA] was carried out. This extraction system
showed satisfying performance as shown by the fractional extraction,
i.e., Y was purified from 85.2 to 99.1 wt % accompanying 85.37% yield
by means of nine extraction stages and six scrubbing stages. The developed
extraction process has shown application potential in the field of
clean production of ion-adsorbed rare-earth minerals.