Sorption and separation of metals from aqueous solution by a macromolecular resin containing tri-n-octylamine.

Experiments were conducted on the equilibrium distribution of divalent zinc between hydrochloric acid medium and macromolecular resin containing tri-n-octylamine (TOA) as an active component. The sorption of zinc on the impregnated sorbent can be expressed by the following stoichiometric relation:ZnCl2(aq.) + 2R3NHCl(s.) ↔ (R3NH)2ZnCl4(s.)where the equilibrium constant was found to be 3.59 × 105 kg-sorbent·dm3/mol2.Furthermore the separation of zinc and copper in aqueous solution by use of the sorbent was examined in a batch operation with hydrochloric acid concentrations over 5M. It was found that the sorbent gives high selective separation of zinc to copper, and they can be separated satisfactorily from a 1.0 mol/dm3 hydrochloric acid solution. The applicability of the TOA-impregnated sorbent to column operation is also reported.