solvent extraction

solvent extraction [′säl·vənt ik‚strak·shən]

(chemical engineering)

The separation of materials of different chemical types and solubilities by selective solvent action; that is, some materials are more soluble in one solvent than in another, hence there is a preferential extractive action; used to refine petroleum products, chemicals, vegetable oils, and vitamins.

(nucleonics)

A process for removing uranium fuel residue from used fuel elements of a reactor; it generally involves decay cooling under water for up to 6 months, removal of cladding, dissolution, separation of reusable fuel, decontamination, and disposal of radioactive wastes. Also known as liquid extraction.

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Solvent extraction

A technique, also called liquid extraction, for separating the components of a liquid solution. This technique depends upon the selective dissolving of one or more constituents of the solution into a suitable immiscible liquid solvent. It is particularly useful industrially for separation of the constituents of a mixture according to chemical type, especially when methods that depend upon different physical properties, such as the separation by distillation of substances of different vapor pressures, either fail entirely or become too expensive.

Industrial plants using solvent extraction require equipment for carrying out the extraction itself (extractor) and for essentially complete recovery of the solvent for reuse, usually by distillation.

The petroleum refining industry is the largest user of extraction. In refining virtually all automobile lubricating oil, the undesirable constituents such as aromatic hydrocarbons are extracted from the more desirable paraffinic and naphthenic hydrocarbons. By suitable catalytic treatment of lower boiling distillates, naphthas rich in aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, and the xylenes may be produced. The latter are separated from paraffinic hydrocarbons with suitable solvents to produce high-purity aromatic hydrocarbons and high-octane gasoline. Other industrial applications include so-called sweetening of gasoline by extraction of sulfur-containing compounds; separation of vegetable oils into relatively saturated and unsaturated glyceride esters; recovery of valuable chemicals in by-product coke oven plants; pharmaceutical refining processes; and purifying of uranium.

Solvent extraction is carried out regularly in the laboratory by the chemist as a commonplace purification procedure in organic synthesis, and in analytical separations in which the extraordinary ability of certain solvents preferentially to remove one or more constituents from a solution quantitatively is exploited. Batch extractions of this sort, on a small scale, are usually done in separatory funnels, where the mechanical agitation is supplied by handshaking of the funnel.