Liquid/Liquid Extractions Carried Out with Microcapsule-Packed Columns

Abstract

The concept of microencapsulation has become well known and a variety of processes for preparing microcapsules have been developed (1). Among the wide range of potential capsule applications (2) is the use of microcapsules in various membrane separation processes. Chang(3)and others (4,5)recognized this some time ago and have demonstrated that microcapsules perform effectively in several such processes. The high surface area characteristic of microcapsules and the fact that this surface area is fixed by a thin polymer membrane provide unique separation capabilities. Liquid/liquid extraction processes represent an unexplored class of separation techniques that might also benefit from using microcapsules. The ability of liquid membranes to effect liquid/liquid separations has been demonstrated (6), but data describing the use of microcapsules for this purpose have not been reported.