Author(s)

Fu-Xiang Cheng¹, Sheng Wu^1,2, Song-Ling Wang¹, Bo Zhang¹, Yan Liu¹, Chun-Sheng Liao^1,2*, Chun-Hua Yan²

¹China Minmetals (Beijing) Research Institute of RE Co., Ltd., Beijing, China.
²Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, PKU-HKU Joint Lab on Rare Earth Materials and Bioinorganic Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China.

Minimum amounts of extracting solvent and scrubbing agent solution (denoted as S_min and W_min respectively) mean the theoretical minimal requirements for chemicals to achieve a specified separation duty, and therefore attract more concerns in the process design of countercurrent extraction separation. Over the past decade, hyperlink extraction technology has been widely used in rare earth separation industry in China with the target to decrease chemical consumption as well as pollution discharges. However, the equations of S_min and W_min derived in the earlier version of the theory of countercurrent extraction can only be correctly applied to two-component separation and become invalid for hyperlink processes. It is significant to develop new aspects of the theory for design of the hyperlink processes. The separation of (A₁A₂···A_t－1)/(A₂A₃···A_t) is the basic configuration in the hyperlink processes differently from in conventional processes, where A₁, A₂, ···, A_t represent different kinds of rare earth ions with the same number of valence. The separations of two and three components have been discussed and the equations of S_min and W_min are derived in our previous works. Nevertheless, it is still significant, especially for rare earth separations, to investigate the separations with more components. The present article will therefore focus on developing new expressions for S_min and W_min applied to the (A₁A₂···A_t﹣1)/(A₂A₃···A_t) separation. Also a five-component separation case is simulated according to the derived equations. This work is an essential part of the new theory to design the hyperlink extraction processes.

Theory of Countercurrent Extraction, Minimum Amount of Extracting Solvent, Countercurrent Extraction, Hyperlink Process, Multi-Component Separation

Cheng, F. , Wu, S. , Wang, S. , Zhang, B. , Liu, Y. , Liao, C. and Yan, C. (2015) Minimum Amounts of Extracting Solvent of (A₁A₂···A_t-1)/(A₂A₃···A_t) Countercurrent Extraction Separation. Advances in Materials Physics and Chemistry, 5, 325-336. doi: 10.4236/ampc.2015.58032.