Robert W. Callahan

Liquid-liquid extraction and stripping of gold with microporous hollow fibers

Abstract Microporous hollow fibers have been used in the extraction of gold from aqueous solutions into an organic extractant and in the stripping of gold from the organic extractant into an aqueous stripping solution. The extraction process displayed little membrane resistance to mass transfer while the stripping process appeared to be dominated by membrane resistance. As a result, overall mass transfer coefficients for stripping were approximately an order of magnitude smaller than those found for extraction. The results support previous work suggesting that liquid-liquid extractions with microporous membranes will be more rapid when the membrane is wetted by the phase having the higher solubility for the solute being transferred.