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The Development Of A Lutetium Recovery Plant, Peter Michael Smith
The Development Of A Lutetium Recovery Plant, Peter Michael Smith
Doctoral Dissertations
This research project focused on the scale-up of an industrial facility for the continuous counter-current solvent extraction (CCCSX) separation of lutetium. CCCSX involves a multistage apparatus for the mixing in each stage of two immiscible liquid phases to transfer an analyte from one phase to the other. The two phases continuously flow in opposite directions in a CCCSX system. In this research, aqueous lutetium solutions, obtained from the acid leaching of lutetium oxyorthosilicate, were mixed with kerosene solutions of phosphorus based metal extractants (e.g. mono-2-ethylhexyl-(2- ethylhexyl) phosphonic acid, MEHEHP). This system extracted the lutetium from the aqueous phase, transferring the …