title: Development of a four-zone carousel process packed with metal ion-imprinted polymer for continuous separation of copper ions from manganese ions, cobalt ions, and the constituent metal ions of the buffer solution used as eluent.
abstract: A three-zone carousel process, in which Cu(II)-imprinted polymer (Cu-MIP) and a buffer solution were employed as adsorbent and eluent respectively, has been developed previously for continuous separation of Cu²⁺ (product) from Mn²⁺ and Co²⁺ (impurities). Although this process was reported to be successful in the aforementioned separation task, the way of using a buffer solution as eluent made it inevitable that the product stream included the buffer-related metal ions (i.e., the constituent metal ions of the buffer solution) as well as copper ions. For a more perfect recovery of copper ions, it would be necessary to improve the previous carousel process such that it can remove the buffer-related metal ions from copper ions while maintaining the previous function of separating copper ions from the other 2 impure heavy-metal ions. This improvement was made in this study by proposing a four-zone carousel process based on the following strategy: (1) the addition of one more zone for performing the two-step re-equilibration tasks and (2) the use of water as the eluent of the washing step in the separation zone. The operating conditions of such a proposed process were determined on the basis of the data from a series of single-column experiments. Under the determined operating conditions, 3 runs of carousel experiments were carried out. The results of these experiments revealed that the feed-loading time was a key parameter affecting the performance of the proposed process. Consequently, the continuous separation of copper ions from both the impure heavy-metal ions and the buffer-related metal ions could be achieved with a purity of 91.9% and a yield of 92.8% by using the proposed carousel process based on a properly chosen feed-loading time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Hanyang University, Haengdang-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
authors.forename: Se-Hee
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.forename: Chanhun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Sung Chul
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: Dukjoon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sungyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mun
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D002021:Buffers; D002845:Chromatography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003035:Cobalt / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D003300:Copper / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008345:Manganese / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D054802:Molecular Imprinting; D011108:Polymers / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D012996:Solutions / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D002021:Buffers; D008670:Metals; D011108:Polymers; D012996:Solutions; D003035:Cobalt; D008345:Manganese; D003300:Copper