Separation of cerium from feed solution by nanofiltration

The aim of this work was to evaluate the separation of cerium ions from dilute cerium feed solution by nanofiltration and to study the performance of commercial NF-300 membrane to accomplish an effective cerium removal at various operating conditions. The feed and permeates were analyzed for solute concentration by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Experimental results indicated that the rejection of cerium ions increases with increase in applied pressure (2–10 bar) and decreases with increase in feed concentrations (10–80 mg/L of CeCl3) at constant cross flow rate. Cerium rejection by nanofiltration assisted by complexation with ethylene diamine tetra aceticacid (EDTA) as chelating agent, was markedly influenced by pH (2–10), where higher degree of cerium removal was achieved for basic medium than that in acidic medium. The maximum observed rejection of Ce(III) was found to be 94.37% and 90.03% for an initial feed concentration of 10 and 80 mg/L, respectively. It was also observed that Ce rejection by NF assisted with EDTA complexation changed from 11% (2 pH) to 99% (8–12 pH).

Research highlights
► Nanofiltration (NF) is used to separate cerium, which is not reported earlier.
► Rejection (RO) of cerium is found to be 94 and 90% for Cf of 10 and 80 ppm.
► Cerium rejection by NF assisted by EDTA complexation is also studied.
► RO with NF assisted EDTA complexation increased from 11 to 99% with pH.