Effects of acceptor phase and donor phase properties on sodium ions transport from aqueous solutions using liquid membrane systems

In this study, the effects of the acceptor phase and the donor phase properties on sodium ion transport were examined in bulk liquid membrane systems. In the experiments, toluene and a mixture of toluene–dichloromethane (90–10%, v/v) containing 1 × 10−3 M DB18C6 (dibenzo18crown6) was used as the membrane. In order to examine the effects of different the acceptor phases, firstly H2SO4, HCl, HNO3, CH3COOH and distilled water were used as the acceptor phases. Furthermore, the experiments were performed by using various acid concentrations such as 2, 0.2 and 0.02 M of acids, as the acceptor phase. In the second part of the study, the effect of donor phase on sodium ion transport was examined. For this examination, Na2SO4, NaNO3, NaOH and NaCl were applied. In order to determine the effect of the donor phase concentration, the experimentation was performed using 1.08 × 10−2, 2.17 × 10−2, 3.26 × 10−2 and 4.34 × 10−2 M concentrations of Na+ in form of NaCl. Finally, nonsteady-state kinetics was applied on all data obtained from the experiments and reaction constants (k1, k2, and k3) and the values of the Rmax, tmax, k1/k2 were calculated. Consequently, it was determined that the type and the concentration of the acceptor phase and the donor phase solutions were significant for transport efficiency in liquid membrane systems. The most efficient transport was obtained by applying 2 M H2SO4 and 2.17 × 10−2 M Na+ in form of NaCl. Besides, It was observed that there was a significant effect of the anion attached to the cation on transport efficiency.