Synthesis of Dihexyldithiophosphate Ligand and a Preliminary Study on Its Use for the Extraction of Gadolinium from Rare Earth Elements Mixture

Abstract

Development of body imaging techniques for medical diagnosis has future promising. To improve the image visibility, Gadolinium (Gd) has been known as an important material for preparing the contrast agent. However, since the rare earth metals have unique physical properties, the separation of Gd from the other metals by a simple, effective and efficient method is still challenging. Hereby, we report the separation of Gd from the rare earth mixture with dihexyl dithiophosphate (DHDTP) ligand by solvent extraction method. The amount of Gd before and after the extraction process was determined with ICP-OES. The results show that the extraction efficiency for the mixed samples of Gd (III) and Sm (III) is 53.10% with 51.10% purity of Gd (III) and extraction efficiency for mixed samples of Gd (III) and Dy (III) is 93.82% with 50.35% purity of Gd (III). This result indicates that DHDTP can be used for solvent extraction of Gd.