High-speed recovery of germanium in a convection-aided mode using functional porous hollow-fiber membranes.
A porous hollow-fiber membrane capable of recovery of germanium from a liquid stream was prepared by radiation-induced graft polymerization of an epoxy-group-containing vinyl monomer, glycidyl methacrylate, and subsequent functionalization with 2,2'-iminodiethanol, di-2-propanolamine, N-methylglucamine, and 3-amino-1,2-propanediol. The functional group density was as high as 1.4 mol per kg of the resultant hollow fiber. The polymer chains containing functional groups surrounding the pores enabled a high-speed recovery of germanium during permeation of a germanium oxide (GeO2) solution through the pores of the hollow fiber. Because of a negligible diffusional mass-transfer resistance, germanium concentration changes with the effluent volume, i.e., breakthrough curves, overlapped irrespective of the residence time of the solution, which ranged from 0.37 to 3.7 s across the hollow fiber. After repeated use of adsorption and elution, the adsorption capacity did not deteriorate.
Ozawa
I
I
Department of Materials Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University, Inage, Japan.
Saito
K
K
Sugita
K
K
Sato
K
K
Akiba
M
M
Sugo
T
T
D002845:Chromatography / Q000379:methods; D005857:Germanium / Q000302:isolation & purification*
D005857:Germanium