Separation of lanthanum and neodymium in a hollow fiber supported liquid membrane: CFD modelling and experimental validation

Nickel metal hydride batteries find extensive use in many electronic devices. They contain a small amount of rare earth elements, such as, lanthanum and neodymium, which can be recovered from waste batteries, and reused. Hollow fiber supported liquid membranes (HFSLM) have been used for separation of different metal ions. In this work, a CFD model has been developed for a HFSLM to study the separation of lanthanum ion (La+3) and neodymium ion (Nd+3) from an aqueous solution. The model considers the effect of pH on distribution coefficient (D-M), which is a function of hydrogen ion (H+) concentration, and has a significant effect on extraction efficiency. The model was validated with the experimental data. An empirical model was fitted with the simulation data, and the parameters were optimized for the effective separation of La+3 and Nd+3. The maximum extraction of Nd+3 was predicted to be 44.97%, whereas extraction of La+3 was estimated to be 3.39%, at the optimized conditions of flow rate: 118.96 ml/min, feed pH: 3.41, and [PC88A]: 41.63 mol/m(3), in once-through mode. The proposed CFD model could be helpful in design as well as, scale-up of HFSLM for separation of metal ions, by changing the design and process parameters.