Issue 11, 2004
From the journal:

Analyst

Intermittent partition walls promote solvent extraction of metal ions in a microfluidic device

Tatsuo Maruyama,a   Tomoaki Kaji,a   Tomohiro Ohkawa,b   Ken-ichiro Sotowa,a   Hironari Matsushita,a   Fukiko Kubota,a   Noriho Kamiya,a   Katsuki Kusakabea  and  Masahiro Goto*a  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan
E-mail: mgototcm@mbox.nc.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Fax: +81-(0)92-642-3575
Tel: +81-(0)92-642-3575

b Tokyo Research Laboratories, Tosoh Corporation, 2743-1 Hayakawa, Ayase, Kanagawa 252-1123, Japan

Abstract

Liquid–liquid extraction of metal ions was carried out in a microfluidic device which had intermittent partition walls in the center of the confluent microchannel 100 µm wide, 20 µm deep and 3 cm long. The intermittent partition walls (50 µm long) stabilized a two-phase (n-heptane–water) flow and allowed clear phase separation at the end-junction of the microchannel. Using this two-phase flow in the microchannel, yttrium ions were successfully extracted in a complex form with an extractant PC-88A (2-ethylhexyl phosphonic acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester) from a feed aqueous phase to a n-heptane phase within a contact time of 1.5 s. Although the apparent interfacial area in the microchannel was reduced by introducing the partition walls, the presence of the partition walls improved the extraction efficiency 2–3 fold at a contact time of 0.12–0.24 s. Flow analyses using fluorescent beads and a computational fluidic dynamics simulation revealed that the partition walls induced a slight turbulence in the two-phase flow in the microchannel. This slight turbulence would result in the mixing of the aqueous phase and promote the transport of yttrium ions from the aqueous feed phase to the organic extractant phase.

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B411630P
Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Jun 2004
Accepted
04 Aug 2004
First published
25 Aug 2004

Analyst, 2004,129, 1008-1013

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Intermittent partition walls promote solvent extraction of metal ions in a microfluidic device

T. Maruyama, T. Kaji, T. Ohkawa, K. Sotowa, H. Matsushita, F. Kubota, N. Kamiya, K. Kusakabe and M. Goto, Analyst, 2004, 129, 1008 DOI: 10.1039/B411630P

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