Kinetic studies on the extraction of uranium(VI) from phosphoric acid medium by bulk liquid membrane containing di-2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid

To go through the first stage of industrial solvent extraction process in order to recover uranium from phosphate rocks by liquid membrane techniques, as a simple model, the kinetics of facilitated transport of uranium(VI) from a dilute phosphoric acid medium into more concentrated phosphoric acid media as a receiving phase through a bulk liquid membrane containing di-2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid as a carrier was studied. The influence of phosphoric acid concentration in the source and receiving phases, carrier concentration, type of solvent, stirring speed and temperature were investigated. The kinetic parameters (k (e), k (s), t (max), J (max)) were calculated for the interface reactions assuming two consecutive, irreversible first-order reactions. The activation energy values were calculated as 29.40 and 19.51 kJ mol(-1) for extraction and stripping, respectively. The values of calculated activation energy indicated that both the extraction and stripping processes were controlled by mixed regime (both kinetic and diffusion). In addition, the influence of adding trioctyl-phosphine oxide into the membrane phase as a synergic agent on the transport kinetics was determined.