Recovery and Purification of In~(3+) from Zinc Hydrometallurgical Process in a T-junction MicroChannel

摘要

A T-junction microchannel is proposed to overcome the existing problems in conventional solvent extraction of indium from zinc hydrometallurgical process. Experiments were performed to separate In~(3+), Fe~(3+) and Zn~(2+) from sulfate solutions using Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) as the extractant. The effect of parameters such as pH, microchannel size and contact time on the extraction behavior of In~(3+), Fe~(3+) and Zn~(2+) was investigated. At contact time of 2.52 s and initial solution pH of 0.48, the extraction efficiency of In~(3+), Fe~(3+) and Zn~(2+) was 99.13%, 8.31%. and 2.45%, respectively and separation factor of β_(In3+/Fe3+) and β_(In3+/Zn2+) were almost 1229.54 and 4864.98, respectively. Then, the loaded organic phase was stripped in T-junction microchannel. At contact time of 33.6 s, 99.64% of stripping efficiency of In~(3+) and stripping equilibrium were reached, while concentration of Fe~(3+) and Zn~(2+) was lower than 0.01 g/L with good separation of In~(3+) from Fe~(3+) and Zn~(2+).