ABSTRACT
This article focuses on bringing out the advantages and specific challenges involved in the application of various configurations of liquid membranes in hollow fiber contactors. It presents the advantages and prospects of application of dispersion type liquid membrane in hollow fiber contactors in large scale using the experience gained while recovering uranium from acidic effluent with phosphate based ligands as the solvent. Experience of a bench scale demonstration trial has been presented here which shows the efficacy of the DLM based process in large scale set up of hollow fiber contactors for quantitative recovery of uranium from acidic waste streams of uranium purification plants, leading to easy disposal of effluent.
The article will also introduce the application of porous polymeric hollow fiber contactors for recovery of uranium from lean effluent, a detailed literature survey on the importance of the configuration of liquid membrane used in the contactor, the mechanism of transport of solute through simultaneous extraction and stripping, and present the status of the application of the contactors in the chemical as well as the nuclear industry. The results of continuous bench scale demonstration runs with real stream of uranium production plant followed by conclusions will be discussed on large-scale applications of the contactors in industry.
