https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2019055
Regular Article
A minimal predictive model for better formulations of solvent phases with low viscosity
1
Institute for Separation Chemistry, ICSM, CEA, CNRS, ENSCM, Univ. Montpellier, Marcoule, France
2
Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Regensburg, 93051 Regensburg, Germany
3
COSMOlogic GmbH & Co. KG, 51379 Leverkusen, Germany
4
CEA, DEN, DMRC, Univ. Montpellier, Marcoule, France
* e-mail: jean.duhamet@cea.fr
Received:
20
August
2019
Received in final form:
10
October
2019
Accepted:
13
November
2019
Published online: 15 January 2020
The viscosity increase of the organic phase when liquid–liquid extraction processes are intensified causes difficulties for hydrometallurgical processes on industrial scale. In this work, we have analyzed this problem for the example of N,N-dialkylamides in the presence of uranyl nitrate experimentally. Furthermore, we present a minimal model at nanoscale that allows rationalizing the experimental phenomena by connecting the molecular, mesoscopic and macroscopic scale and that allows predicting qualitative trends in viscosity. This model opens broad possibilities in optimizing constraints and is a further step towards knowledge-based formulation of extracting microemulsions formed by microstructures with low connectivity, even at high load with heavy metals.
© M. Pleines et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
