Chromium extraction with organic solvents Part 1. Extraction with DEHPA

Chromium and its compounds give toxic and/or hazardous characteristics to all those industrial wastes, solids or liquids, that contain them. Organic solvent extraction is a technique that allows the recovery of chromium contained in these residues. In this work the extraction of Cr(III) from aqueous solutions with solutions of a cationic reactive (DEHPA) in kerosene is studied. In the same way the stripping process was studied. It has been found that Cr(III) and DEHPA react in. l/l molar ratio, being the extraction kinetics very fast. Final aqueous phase final pH influence extraction yield, so that it is necessary to work with pH values between 3 and 4. It must be added a modifier (isodecanol) to the organic phase to avoid the formation of a third phase in the stripping process. The concentration of isodecanol has to be higher than 15 %, so the organic phase used was a solution of 12.5 % v/v DEHPA in kerosene and 20 % v/v isodecanol. The stripping process is slow and must be carried out in an oxidant alkalyne medium, thus an aqueous solution of NaOH and H2O2 was used. An increase in the concentration of NaOH and H2O2 leads to an increase in the stripping yield initially, and becomes stable when concentrations of NaOH and H2O2 used are higher than 0.45 N and 4 % v/v respectively.