Selective separation of scandium (III) from rare earth metals by carboxyl-functionalized ionic liquids

It is always difficult to separate scandium from yttrium and lanthanides due to their similar physicochemical properties. In this work, a selective separation strategy for Sc (III) from yttrium and lanthanides in aqueous solution was developed by using ionic liquids 1-alkylcarboxylic acid-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([(CH2)nCOOHmin][Tf2N]) (n = 3, 5, 7) as extractants and 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([Cnmim][Tf2N]) (n = 4, 6, 8, 10) ionic liquids as diluents. The extraction parameters such as phase valume ratio, equilibrium time, pH value of the aqueous phase, alkyl chain length of the extractants and diluents, and system temperature were investigated systematically. It was shown that the extraction efficiency of Sc (III) increased with the increase of aqueous phase pH value, and was as high as 99.5% at pH 4.2. Sc (III) could be extracted selectively from yttrium and lanthanides by simple tuning of pH value of the aqueous phase, and the separation factor was 103. After the extraction, stripping of Sc (III) from the ionic liquids was attempted by using dilute aqueous HNO3. In addition, an ion exchange mechanism of the proton of extractants and the cation of the diluents was proposed from a series of control experiments. Since both the proton of the extractants and cation of the diluents participated in the extraction process, amount of the ionic liquids transferred to water phase can be greatly reduced compared with the cation exchange based metal extraction using only ionic liquid extractants.