A hydrometallurgical process for the recovery of rare earth elements from fluorescent lamp waste fractions

•A process to recover rare earth elements from fluorescent lamp waste is presented.•Selective leaching is used to bring various groups of metals into solution.•Rare earth element ions are recovered using solvent extraction with Cyanex 923.•The process was successfully tested at laboratory pilot scale using mixer-settlers.•A mixed rare earth oxide with 99.96% purity was obtained.