Selective Extraction of Cu (II) Using Novel C=O–NOH-Contained Compound-Dodecyl Phenyl Ethyl Hydroxamic Acid and Its Extraction Mechanism

ABSTRACT

Herein, a novel C=O–NOH-contained compound was synthesized and used in the extraction and recovery of copper from sulfate solution. Dodecyl phenyl ethyl hydroxamic acid (DPEHA) exhibited high selectivity to Cu(II) over the competing ions, and the separation factors (β) obtained were β_Cu/Zn = 227.370, β_Cu/Co = 199.094, β_Cu/Ni = 188.889, respectively. The separation effect was stronger than that of 2-hydroxy-5-nonyl acetophenone oxime. Meanwhile, extraction capacity of 0.10 g Cu(II) per gram DPEHA was reached, and the extracted Cu(II) can be stripped effectively. The investigation of extraction mechanism revealed that O atoms in C=O and O-H groups of DPEHA operate as active sites, which could powerfully chelate with Cu(II) by forming stable five-membered rings. The high copper extraction efficiency and selectivity associated with a simple synthesis of DPEHA make it to serve as the potential selective Cu(II) extractant, which also provide a novel insight for the research and development of economical Cu(II) extractants.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Selective separation
• solvent extraction
• Cu(II)
• hydroxamic acid

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the support from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program, Grant No.2013AA064102) and the High Performance Computing Center of Central South University, China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07366299.2023.2229888.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Dong Cao: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing-original draft, Visualization. Shuai Wang: Resources, Supervision, Writing (review & editing). Xin Ma: Supervision, Writing (review & editing), Resources. Jia Yang: Writing (review & editing), Supervision, Resources. Hong Zhong: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.