Selective Liquid-Liquid Extraction of Lead Ions Using Newly Synthesized Extractant 2-(Dibutylcarbamoyl)benzoic Acid

A new carboxylic acid extractant, named 2-(dibutylcarbamoyl)benzoic acid, is prepared and its potential for selective solvent extraction and recovery of lead ions from industrial samples was investigated. The slope analysis indicated that the lead ions are extracted by formation of 1:2 metal to ligand complexes. The effect of the parameters influencing the extraction efficiency including kind of the organic diluent, extractant concentration, type of the salt used for ionic strength adjustment, contact time and temperature was evaluated and discussed. Under optimized conditions (aqueous phase: 5 ml, initial lead concentration 1 × 10-4 M, pH 4, sodium chloride 0.1 M; organic phase: 5 ml dichloromethane, ligand concentration 0.05 M), a quantitative (75.2 ± 0.8%) and highly selective extraction of lead ions in the presence of zinc, nickel, cobalt and cadmium ions (each 1 × 10-4 M) was achieved, after 20 min. magnetically stirring of the phases, at      25 °C. The extracted lead ions were stripped from the organic phase by diluted nitric acid (0.1 M) solution. The proposed method was successfully applied for separation of lead from industrial samples. The study of the effect of temperature allowed evaluating the thermodynamic parameters of the extraction process of lead ions by the studied extractant into dichloromethane.