Abstract
Selective separation is usually performed with the help of a strong difference in the permeation rates of the solutes through a liquid membrane, where the solutes are transported through the membrane in co-current fashion. In this work we propose a method of obtaining the countercurrent transport of the solutes, by using a liquid membrane with two kinds of carriers which have different mechanisms of extracting the solutes. It was demonstrated that one carrier, TOA, transports the metals zinc and iron from one aqueous phase to the other while the other carrier, D2EHP, preferentially back-transports to the original aqueous phase the iron transported by TOA. An efficient separation of zinc and iron was performed with the help of these two carriers.
