Migration of Trivalent Praseodymium from Tombarthite Sewage by Microtubule Ultrafiltration Reactor with Organophosphorus in Fuel Oil

Abstract

A microtubule ultrafiltration reactor (MUFR), with an organophosphorus system containing a sewage section with buffer liquid acetic acid and an enrichment section with aqua fortis liquid and organophosphorus dissolved in fuel oil, has been studied for praseodymium(III) migration. Many factors of praseodymium(III) migration using MUFR need to be explored, including hydrogen ion molarity (or pH), cinit of praseodymium(III), the different ionic strengths of rare-earth mine sewage, the volume ratio of organophosphorus fuel oil and aqua fortis liquid (O/A), aqua fortis’ molarity, organophosphorus’ molarity, and the effects of different acid liquids in the enrichment section on praseodymium(III) migration with MUFR. The virtues of MUFR compared to conventional migration were explored. The effects of the hydrodynamic properties (stability and flow velocity) and UF system parameters (internal diameter of the microtubule, tubule shell thickness, void ratio), etc., on the mass migration performance of the MUFR process for praseodymium(III) migration were also studied. The experimental results show that the best migration prerequisites of praseodymium(III) were obtained as follows: an aqua fortis molarity of 4.00 mol/L, an organophosphorus molarity of 0.200 mol/L, an O/A of 0.6 in the enrichment section, and a pH value of 4.80 in the sewage section. The ionic strength of rare-earth mine sewage had no obvious effect on praseodymium(III) migration. When the cinit of praseodymium(III) molarity was 1.58 × 10−4 mol/L, the migration percentage of praseodymium(III) reached 95.2% in 160 min.