Application of ionic liquid-liquid chromatography (ILLC) to extractions of metals

金属的分离和离析是人类科学努力的最初领域之一。由于地球上的资源有限，特别是贵金属，加上对其使用的需求不断增加，迫切需要能够生产，回收和再利用它们的新技术。此外，在电气、电子和核工业中，镧系元素和锕系元素的需求量不断增加。该提案描述了一种新的通用方法的发展，用于分离金属化合物和盐。这使得从催化转换器、电子废料甚至金属矿石中回收的金属可以被分离并以纯净的形式分离出来，最终可以重新投入商业使用。金属分离使用离子液体-液相色谱（ILLC）新技术，这是逆流色谱（CCC）的一种先进形式，它使用离子液体作为相之一。离子液体具有独特的性质，可以克服传统有机溶剂在分离中存在的问题。它们完全由离子组成，在室温或接近室温时是液体，可以溶解各种有机和无机分子，特别是金属盐。重要的是，离子液体在环境温度下没有可测量的蒸汽压，并且通常不易燃。离子液体相对较高的成本阻碍了其在连续大规模系统中的广泛应用。强化技术（需要较少的溶剂）将使离子液体的好处得到利用。一种这样的强化技术是逆流色谱法。由于其高粘度，离子液体在逆流色谱系统中的应用非常有限，并且通常在低粘度溶剂的溶液中，这否定了IL的目的。QUILL与AECS合作解决了这一局限性，生产了一种独特的离子液体-液相色谱系统（ILLC）。在拟议的研究项目中，创新的强化萃取技术，联合收割机结合离子液体的独特溶剂性能与ILLC的高性能将被研究用于分离金属（贵金属，镧系元素，铀）。这项研究将由北方爱尔兰的QUILL和伦敦的UCL两个团队进行。AECS的参与将加强这种合作，AECS将根据项目需要设计和建立国际土地利用法律文书。ILLC是一种新的高性能分离技术，将在该联合提案下以两种不同的方式进行研究。QUILL将开展我们的直接金属分离研究及其商业化应用，并设计和生产所需的离子液体。UCL将研究ILLC中的流体动力学和传质现象，并开发可用于最大化性能的过程的预测模型。高速成像和激光诱导荧光（LIF）的研究将有助于阐明流动和混合制度的ILLC分离。诸如流速、仪器参数、离子液体和溶剂性质和选择如何影响分离等因素将被调查。QUILL和UCL研究的结果将结合起来，以生成金属分离的放大方案，最终目标是开发更有效的分离，具有更低的能源需求，并使用目前在金属分离行业中使用的更安全的低毒溶剂。

The separation of and isolation of metals is one of the first areas of human scientific endeavour. With limited resources on earth, particularly of noble metals together with the ever increasing demand for their use, new technologies that allow them to be produced, recycled and reused are urgently needed. Also, lanthanide and actinide elements are being required in ever increasing quantities in the electrical, electronic and nuclear industries. This proposal describes the development of a new general purpose methodology for the separation of metal compounds and salts. This allows metals recovered from waste such as catalytic converters, electronic scrap, or even from metal ores to be separated and isolated in a pure form that can eventually be put back into commercial use.The metal separations use the new technology of ionic liquid-liquid chromatography (ILLC) which is an advanced form of countercurrent chromatography (CCC), which uses ionic liquids as one of the phases. Ionic liquids (ILs) have unique properties that can overcome the problems associated with the use of conventional organic solvents in separations. They are composed entirely of ions, are liquid at or near room temperature and can dissolve a wide range of organic and inorganic molecules, especially metal salts. Importantly, ILs have no measurable vapour pressure at ambient temperatures and are generally non-flammable. The relatively high costs of ILs have prevented their extensive use in continuous large-scale systems. Intensified technologies (which require less solvent), will allow the benefits of ILs to be exploited. One such intensified technology is counter current chromatography. Because of their high viscosities, the application of ionic liquids in counter current chromatography systems has been very limited and usually in solution in low viscosity solvents, which negates the purpose of the IL. This limitation was solved at QUILL in collaboration with AECS, to produce a unique, ionic liquid-liquid chromatography system (ILLC). In the proposed research project innovative intensified extraction technologies which combine the unique solvent properties of ionic liquids with the high performance of ILLC will be investigated for the separation of metals (noble, lanthanides, uranium). The research will be carried out by two teams which are QUILL in Northern Ireland and UCL in London. The collaboration will be strengthened by the involvement of AECS, which will design and build the ILLC instruments based on the project needs. ILLC is a new high performance separation technology that will be studied under this joint proposal in two separate ways. QUILL will carry our research into the direct metal separations and their scale up for commercial use, and design and produce ionic liquids necessary for the research proposed. UCL will study the hydrodynamic and mass transfer phenomena in ILLC and develop predictive models of the process that can be used to maximise the performance. High speed imaging and Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) studies will help elucidate the flow and mixing regimes in ILLC separations. Factors such as how flow rates, instrument parameters, ionic liquid and solvent properties and choices affect separations and will be investigated. The results of the QUILL and UCL studies will be combined to generate scale up protocols for metal separations with the ultimate goal of developing separations that are more efficient, have lower energy demand and use safer less noxious solvents that are currently used in the metal separation industry.