Abstract In this work, various complexing agents such as glycerin, Trilon B, tartaric acid, xylitol, sorbitol, and others were used to strip scandium from the loaded D2EHPA. Xylitol and sorbitol were shown to allow efficient stripping of scandium. The state of scandium in alkaline sorbitol solutions was studied using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infrared (IR), and electron spectroscopy. Complexes with different scandium‐to‐sorbitol molar ratios, including anionic scandium complexes, were shown to be present in the aqueous solutions. The effect of aqueous phase equilibrium pH, sorbitol concentration, temperature, and phase contact time on stripping of scandium from the D2EHPA and octyl alcohol mixture with alkaline sorbitol solutions was studied. The stripping of Sc(III) from the loaded organic phase with an efficiency of 99.8%–99.9% was successfully achieved using a 2.0 mol/L NaOH, a 0.5 mol/L sorbitol, an O:A phase ratio of 2.5:1, 2–3 min as contact time, at a temperature of 50°C. Unlike the known stripping reagents such as sodium hydroxide or sodium fluoride used in the D2EHPA‐based systems, Sc stripping with sorbitol occurred without the third phase and precipitate formation with a phase separation time of ~2 min. Due to its simplicity and availability, scandium stripping with alkaline sorbitol solutions can be applied to D2EHPA systems for scandium recovery from various industrial solutions, including uranium production solutions, red mud leach solutions, spent sulphuric acid, and so forth.
Fleitlikh et al. (Sun,) studied this question.