Separation and purification of nano-Al13 by UF method

In this paper, separation and purification of Al-13 nano-species in polyaluminum chloride (PAC) solution using ultra-filtration (UF) method were investigated. The property of PAC with various PAC concentrations (0.05-0.5 mol/L Al(III)) and B (OH/Al ratio) values (1.0-2.5) was characterized by UF membrane. The influencing factors for separation and purification of Al-13 during UF processing were discussed. The experimental results show that particle size distribution of PACs varies markedly with B value and total aluminum concentration under 3-6 kD molecular weight cut off (MWCO) membrane. The particle size of Al-13 is Close to the pore size of I kD MWCO membrane. The retention factor of UF membrane differs significantly with the Al-a, Al-b and Al-c species (hydrolyzed speciation according to chemical ferron assay). By choosing the combination of 3 and 1 kD UF membrane, it is possible to separate and purify Al-13. The operating pressure exhibits little effect on the selective separation of Al-13 with other species, while it does decrease the separation time needed. High concentration of Al-13 (about 1 mol/L) could be obtained with purity of more than 90%. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.