Rapid removal of uranium from aqueous solution by emulsion liquid membrane containing thenoyltrifluoroacetone

In this study, the removal of uranium from aqueous solution is studied using emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) system. The ELM is made up of 2-Thenoyltrifluoroacetone (HTTA) as a carrier, kerosene as an organic diluent, HCl as a stripping solution and sorbitan monooleate (Span- 80) as a surfactant for stabilizing the emulsion phase. Initially, the important parameters affecting the removal of uranium, were screened out using a fractional factorial design. Then the effect of the selected factors were studied to obtain the optimal conditions. Under the assessed conditions (pH of donor phase = 5; HTTA concentration in the membrane phase = 0.02 mol/L; emulsion/donor phase volume ratio = 0.2; uranium concentration in the donor phase < 150 mg/L), the removal percentage of uranium was obtained 99.8% in less than five minutes.