A STUDY OF ETHER EXTRACTION OF URANYL NITRATE HEXAHYDRATE LIQUORS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FORMATION OF EMULSIONS

with suspicion a process which claims to separate one element from all others in the periodic system with a simple set of manipulations such as an extraction. Furthermore, there is the familiar example of iodide ion which anyone would expect to be oxidized to iodine and then be transferred almost quantitatively to the ether layer from which it would not wash out. It seemed reasonable that other elements or ions would be found which would fail to wash out of the ether layer. Since the objective was the removal of the neutron absorbers whether their danger coefficients were especially high or not, it became important that every possible check on the effectiveness of the extraction method was investigated. Furthemore there was a probability that the concentration of any individual impurity in different batches of raw material would vary over a wide range. The question was raised whether a large increase in the concentration of some ions would either make the washing of the ether layer unsuccessful or uneconomical.