Colloidal Model for the Prediction of the Extraction of Rare Earths Assisted by the Acidic Extractant

We propose the statistical thermodynamic model for the prediction of the liquid−liquid extraction efficiency in the case of rare-earth metal cations using the common bis(2-ethyl-hexyl)phosphoric acid (HDEHP) extractant. In this soft matter-based approach, the solutes are modeled as colloids. The leading terms in free-energy representation account for: the complexation, the formation of a highly curved extractant film, lateral interactions between the different extractant head groups in the film, configurational entropy of ions and water molecules, the dimerization, and the acidity of the HDEHP extractant.

Lire l'article DOI : 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b03846
Mario Spadina, Klemen Bohinc, Thomas Zemb, and Jean-Francois Dufrêche, Langmuir 35, 3215−3230 (2019)