Liquid-liquid extraction of trace level zirconium and hafnium with trioctylamine

Abstract

Extraction behavior of zirconium and hafnium tracers,95Zr and175,181Hf, in HF, HCl, HNO3 and H2SO4 media with the liquid anion exchanger TOA has been studied. Under optimum conditions, TOA was found to be very effective for quantitative extraction of the individual elements at their trace scale concentrations, but due to higher extractibility and almost identical chemical behavior of the radiotracers towards TOA, the reagent was not so effective for mutual separation of the elements when they were present as congeneric pairs in the aqueous solutions. Extents of extraction of the elements at different stages were measured by γ-ray spectrometry.