Table 1.
Extraction of Zirconium with Tri-n-butyl Phosphate
(Equal phase volumes, extraction time, 2 minutes) Molarity of a ueous solution 2'o 4'0 6'o 'O'O Zr extracted, Commercial TBP 73 36 47 90 98 0 20 62 98 Scrubbed TBP 7 equal volume of 10% sodium carbonate solution to tri-n-butyl phosphate and extract for 2 minutes. Repeat the sodium carbonate extraction and wash the T B P four times with a n equal volume of water. Wash the tri-n-butyl phosphate for 2 minutes with a n equal volume of a 1% nitric acid solution. Reagent grade chemicals were used as received.
A study was made of the effect of acidity on the estraction of zirconium by tri-n-butyl phosphate. Varying volumes of nitric acid were added to 2.00-ml. aliquots of the tracer solution and the resulting solutions were then diluted to 10.0 ml. Ten milliliters of commercial tri-n-butyl phosphate were added to each solution and a 2-minute extraction was carried out. An identical set of samples was run, using tri-n-butyl phosphate which had been scrubbed twice with 10% sodium carbonate. This scrubbing should remove the major portion of any mono- or di-n-butyl present in the tri-n-butyl. These results are shown in Table 1. At low acidity (1 to 4N), a significant decrease in the extraction of zirconium was noted when the scrubbed tri-n-butyl phosphate was used. The data obtained using commercial tri-n-butyl phosphate \vas used. The data obtained using com-
l2
100 99
mercial tri-n-butyl phosphate agree qualitatively n
