Understanding the Effect of the Phase Modifier n -Octanol on Extraction, Aggregation, and Third-Phase Appearance in Solvent Extraction

Phase modifiers are often added to solvent extraction processes to avoid the third-phase formation. While this important issue was attributed to sticky interactions between reverse aggregates, structural effects of phase modifiers remain ambiguous. As they are similar to reverse hydrotropes, phase modifiers may act as cosurfactants or cosolvents in the organic phase in a solvent extraction system. We therefore applied an innovative small-angle scattering approach coupled with surface tension measurements on the industrially applied AMEX process to evaluate how phase modifiers repel the third phase and affect the extraction properties. We first confirmed that adding 1-octanol has a small influence on the extraction performance. By varying the scattering contrast of the solution with deuterated 1-octanol, we found that 1-octanol is located both in the solvent, acting as a cosolvent and diluting the aggregates, and in an outer shell of the aggregates. Further surface tension measurements demonstrated that instead of penetrating till the core of the aggregates as a cosurfactant, 1-octanol only penetrates their shell and forms a shielding barrier avoiding the coalescence of aggregates.