Recovery of copper from solutions by rotating film pertraction

A liquid membrane (pertraction) process of copper recovery from dilute aqueous solutions is studied applying a rotating film pertraction technique. LIX 65(R)N dissolved in C-10-C-13 normal paraffins is used as the carrier. A mathematical model describing copper transfer is proposed, assuming that (1) the chemical reactions between copper ions and carrier molecules take place in the aqueous solution layers adjacent to the membrane phase, and (2) both the reaction kinetics and the mass transfer of the solutes control the overall rate of the process, In order to evaluate the reaction rate constants and the coefficients of mass transfer, the distribution coefficients for the active oxime carrier (m(HR)) and the copper-oxime complex (m(CuR2)) are obtained independently. The effects of temperature and disc rotation velocity on the pertraction rate are studied, as well as the possibility for the selective removal of copper from a solution containing ions of several bivalent metals. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.