Potential Fast and Promising Separation for Valuable Ions of Biomedical Interest

Abstract— The objective of the current work is to evaluate the selective extraction of zinc(II) from copper(II) ions from their binary system as a simulated mode for separation of ^64,67Cu from irradiation Zn target using a variety of extractants diluted in kerosene from chloride medium. The different factors affecting the extraction system such as extraction time, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen ions, extractant type, extractant concentrations, chloride ions and temperature were studied in order to obtain the best conditions for the extraction process. Trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) is efficient and promising for selective extraction of Zn over Cu from HCl by high extraction % (91.32%) within 10 min, the extracted zinc(II) species was suggested to be HZnCl₃·2TOPO while copper was almost completely not extracted. Stripping was successfully accomplished by 0.01 M NaCl solution, and 5 min was sufficient to strip the loaded Zn(II) ions completely. The extraction and striping operations took around 25 min to complete separation of Zn(II)/Cu(II) from the binary system. The negative values of ΔH and ΔS variation indicate the exothermic behavior of the extraction process. As a result, TOPO is a promising extractant with a high efficiency for extracting zinc from copper and the potential for reuse for eleven cycles nearly with the same efficiency. Therefore, the sequences involved in fast separation with high purity between Zn(II)/ Cu(II) in the binary system using TOPO as extractant can be recommended to separate ^64,67Cu as a theranostic radionuclide from irradiated Zn target.