Performance and stability of supported liquid membranes using LIX 984N forcopper transport

The transport of copper through supported Liquid membranes (SLM) using Celg ard and Accurel membranes as supports and a novel commercial extractant LIX 984N as a carrier was investigated. LM 984N provides good overall transpor t performance for copper from the acidic and dilute solution to the concent rated copper sulfuric acid. The instability of the supported liquid membran es using Celgard 2500 as the membrane support has been studied. It has been demonstrated that initially the surface shear forces due to stirring are a main cause for membrane liquid loss leading to SLM instability. However, d uring long term permeation no single instability mechanism dominants. The i nstability of long term operation involves a complex interaction of a numbe r of factors, including surface shear forces, Marangoni effects, changes to membrane morphology, Bernard instabilities and membrane preparation protoc al. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.