This paper investigates the development of a new environment friendly approach for treatment of bastnasite. A new process was developed to recover fluorine from bastnasite as synthetic cryolite by-product. The conditions affecting the fluorine removal and recovery in the process, including contact time, acidity. Al3+ concentration, Al/F molar ratio and different kinds of aluminum salts being used, were investigated. The results indicate that high acidity and large Al/F molar ratio were beneficial to fluoride removal, and that the reaction reached equilibrium after 15 min. The effect of the initial Al-3(+) concentration at a certain total Al3+ amount was slight. Aluminum nitrate was more efficient than aluminum sulfate for the removal of fluoride. Optimum operation parameters for synthesizing cryolite have been obtained and proposed for industrial applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.