Influence of the extracted solute on the aggregation of malonamide extractant in organic phases: Consequences for phase stability

Abstract Due to their amphiphilic properties, malonamide molecules in alkane are organized in reverse micelle type aggregates, composed of a polar core formed by the malonamide polar heads and the extracted solutes, and surrounded by a hydrophobic shell made up of the extractant alkyl chains. The aggregates interact with one another through an attractive potential, leading to the formation of a third phase. This occurs with the splitting of the organic phase into a light phase composed mostly of diluent, and a heavy third phase containing highly concentrated extractant and solutes. In this article, we show that the aggregation (monomer concentration, domain of stability, and attractive potential between micelles) greatly depends on the nature of the extracted solute, whereas the size of aggregate (aggregation number) is only slightly influenced by this. We describe the extraction of water, nitric acid, neodymium nitrate and uranyl nitrate. Strongly polarizable species induce consistently large attraction potentials and a small stability domain for the dispersion of nanodroplets in the solvent. Highly polarizable ions such as lanthanides or uranyl induce more long-range attractive interactions than do protons.