Separation of zirconium from hafnium in sulfate medium using solvent extraction with a new reagent BEAP

A new extractant, bis(2-ethylhexyl)-1-(2-ethylhexylamino)propylphosphonate (BEAP or B) was synthesized to extract and separate zirconium and hafnium from sulfate medium. Under optimum conditions, the separation factor of Zr over Hf was found to be 6.8. The extracted complexes were determined to be ZrO(HSO4)2·3B and HfO(HSO4)2·2B. The extractions of zirconium and hafnium are both exothermic. A counter-current operation was conducted, in which the content of HfO2 was decreased from 3% to 0.6% in the ZrO2 product. It is suggested that much more extraction and scrubbing stages are needed to reach the goal of 0.01% HfO2 in ZrO2 product.