Separation of light and middle lanthanides using multistage extraction with diglycolamide extractant

Matsutani, Takafumi; Sasaki, Yuji  ; Katsuta, Shoichi*

We investigated the chemical behavior of lanthanides (Ln) using diglycolamide extractant with multistage extraction. We obtained the breakthrough curves for light and middle Ln. Our study reveals that the metal extraction limit depends on their values and metal concentrations used in the experiments. From the multistage extractions of 15 aqueous phases and 15 organic phases, three curves (extraction curves, back-extraction curves, and separation curves) were obtained by changing the nitric acid concentration. As an example, under a condition of the separation curve experiment (aqueous phase: 0.5 M HNO, organic phase: 0.1 M TDDGA (-tetradecyl-diglycolamide) in -dodecane), a recovery of more than 99% of Sm in the organic phase with less than 1% Nd can be obtained.