Separation of indium from impurities in T-type microreactor with D2EHPA

Abstract The extraction efficiencies and separation factors ( β In/Fe , β In/Zn , β In/Al , β In/Mg ) of indium and impurities (Fe 3+ , Zn 2+ , Al 3+ , Mg 2+ ) are compared with the different extractant concentration, initial pH and contact time during microfluidic extraction and conventional extraction. The results show that the optimal experimental conditions for microfluidic extraction are pH value of 0.7, extractant concentration of 30%, contact time of 60 s. compared to conventional extraction, microfluidic extraction can reduce the contact time by half, and effectively improve the separation factor of indium and impurities. β In/F e increased from 276 in conventional extraction to 18,720 in microfluidic extraction, β In/Zn increased from 70,118 to 266,373, β In/Al increased from 4987 to 41,955, and β In/Mg increased from 2918 to 11,809. The effect of iron on the extraction efficiency of indium is higher than that of zinc, aluminum and magnesium. In addition, the efficient selective extraction of microreactor was explained by comparing the flow forms of the fluids in the conventional and microfluidic extraction methods.