Facilitated transport of copper through bulk liquid membranes containing different carriers: compared kinetic study

The discharge of heavy metals into the environment is a serious problem facing numerous industries. Heavy metals tend to accumulate in living organisms causing various diseases and disorders. So the search for extraction techniques to remove those heavy metals are of increasing interest. Liquid membranes have shown great potential in this way, especially in cases where metal concentrations are relatively low and other techniques cannot be applied efficiently. A comparative kinetic study of the facilitated counter transport of copper ion through bulk liquid membranes containing D2EHPA, CYANEX 272 and LIX 984N as carriers and protons as counter ions is carried out is this paper. The transport kinetic was analysed by means of a kinetic model involving two consecutive irreversible first-order reactions. The rate constants of the extraction and stripping reactions and the maximum transport fluxes of copper(II) through the bulk liquid membrane were determined for the three carriers.