Solid – Liquid Extraction

Solid-Liquid Extraction

Solid liquid extraction(leaching) means the removal of a

constituent from a mixture of solids by bringing the
solid material into contact with a liquid solvent that
dissolves this particular constituent.
Applications:-
1- leaching of soybean oil from flaked soybeans with
hexane.
2- Leaching of sugar from sugar beets with hot water.
3- Production of vegetable oils with organic solvents
such as hexane , acetone and ether by extraction the oil
peanuts , soybeans, sunflower seeds, cotton seeds and
halibut livers.
4- Soluble tea is produced by water leaching of tea
Leaves.
5- Gold is leached from its ore using an aqueous
sodium cyanide solution.
6- Extraction of copper oxide from low grade ores with
dilute H2SO4 acid.
Mechanism of leaching:-
Extraction involves two steps which are:-
1- Contacting step:- of solvent and the material to be
Treated, so as to transfer soluble constituent to the
Solvent.
2- Separation step:- of the solution formed from the
relatively exhausted solids.
The above two steps may be conducted in separate
Equipment or in one and the same equipment.
Solution resulting from separation step is termed
Overflow, Solids left over are termed Underflow.
Extraction Terminology:-
1-Contacting Step:-
Basically it’s a mass transfer step , it aims at transferring
The soluble constituent from the solid phase into the
liquid phase by diffusion and dissolution.
The solute is first dissolved from the surface of the
solid, then passes into the main body of the solution by
diffusion.
This process may result in the formation of pores in the
solid material which exposes fresh(new) surfaces to
subsequent solvent penetration to such surfaces.
An ideal contacting (mixing) stage yields a product in
Thermodynamic Equilibrium→ No mass transfer.
No heat transfer.
No momentum transfer.
Why its difficult to reach an ideal stage behavior,
thermodynamic equilibrium ?
* The rate of mass transfer is slow due to the pore
resistance:- the rate of diffusion of solute out of the
pores(capillaries) into the bulk solution are very slow.
* Some part of the contained solute is not exposed to
the solvent(inside a non-porous layer or closed pores).
* Sometimes the adsorption of the solute on the
surface of the solid is > than the solubility in the solvent,
so the realization of an ideal stage needs rather long
times if the operations is carried out batch wise or an
Excessively large apparatus if the operation is continuous.
How to increase the rate of mass transfer?
1- Increase the agitation speed, thickness of the boundary
Layer decreases.
2- As the temperature increase, the solubility increase,
Hence, the diffusion increases , the viscosity decreases
leading to decrease in the film thickness , hence the pore
resistance decreases.
3-Size reduction of solid to increase the exposed mass
transfer area.

2-Separation step:-
This is a momentum transfer step that can be carried
out by (settling or filtration).

Calculations:-
The design problem of calculating number of
theoretical stages require simultaneous solution of
material balance and equilibrium relations.
We have three component system:-
1- solute (A)
2- Inert solid(B)
3- Solvent (S)
Representing the three component system on right
angle triangle:-
Addition of two streams:-
P+Q=R
P x AP + Q x AQ = R x AR
P x BP + Q x BQ = R x BR
P x SP + Q x SQ = R x SR
By using lever arm principle,
the length and amounts
are calculated as follows:-
PR Q a
= =
RQ P b
Subtraction of two streams:-
N-M=K
N x AN - M x AM = K x AK
N x BN - M x BM = K x BK
N x SN - M x SM = K x SK
By using lever arm principle,
the length and amounts
are calculated as follows:-
NK M b'
= =
MK N a' + b'
Equilibrium Relations:-
A-Locus of under flow:-
1- The mass of solution retained/unit mass of inert
insoluble solids is obtained experimentally as a function
of solution composition YA. The data is usually available
in tabular form.
(Kg solution / Kg solids ) = (A+S)/B YA = ( A/ A+ S)

0.30 0.1

0.32 0.2
0.35 0.3

0.4 0.4
2- In some cases the solution retained/kg solids is
approximated constant.
i.e independent of
composition.
This means that the
locus of underflow
is a line parallel
to the hypotenuse.
3-Locus is a straight line:-
Locus between two points ( 0, 0.8 ) & ( 0.4, 0 )
4- …… kg solvent retained/ kg solute-free solid:-
S
=r=1
B
S
  xS
A+B+S   r
B xB
 
A+B+S
xS
 =r
1 - ( x A + xS )
100% S
 x S = r - r (x A + x S ) = r - r x A + r x S
(1+ r) x S = r - r x A
r r
 xS = - x A ( It's a striaght line equation)
1+ r 1+ r
If x S = 0  x A =1
If x A = 0  x S = 1/2
B- Locus of overflow:-
Also the overflow consists generally of solution only ,i.e
(solid-free or inert-free) its locus is:-
1- The hypotenuse.
2- In some cases the overflow contains 10% solids and
90% solution.
B : A+S
10 : 90
xB = B / ( A + B + S ) = 0.1
3- ………..and the overflow from the first stage contains
10% from the solids in the feed.
Ideal Extraction Stage:-

Ideal extraction stage indicates

whether or not we are close
to thermodynamic equilibrium.
The ideal stage in leaching is represented as a straight
line going through point (B) and cutting the two locus
in x1 and y1.