Study on Mg2+ removal from ammonium dihydrogen phosphate solution by an emulsion liquid membrane

Abstract

Mg2+is extracted from ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (NH4H2PO4) solution by an emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) using mono-(2-ethylhexyl) 2-ethylhexyl phosphonate (HEHPEHE)as a carrier, sulfonated liquid polybutadiene (LYF) as a surfactant and kerosene as a solvent. To study the extraction efficiency and advantages of the ELM process in the separation of Mg2+,the effects of various operating conditions on the extraction -HEHPEHE volume fraction, reaction temperature, treat ratio (emulsion phase / external phase), phase ratio (membrane phase / internal phase), agitation speed, extraction time, internal phase concentration, surfactant LYF concentration and initial pH of NH4H2PO4 solution are experimentally investigated and discussed. The results show that Mg2+ in NH4H2PO4 solution can be effectively removed by the ELM process. An extraction efficiency of more than 83.1% is attained at the optimized parameters and superior-grade NH4H2PO4can be obtained by two levels of extraction.

Keywords

• wet process phosphoric acid
• NH4H2PO4 solution
• Mg2+
• ELM
• HEHPEHE