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Updated: Feb 1, 2026

Solubility of Hydrophobic Compounds in Aqueous Solution Using Combinations of Self-assembling Peptide and Amino Acid
Published on: September 20, 2017
Direct Temperature-Swing Extraction of Rare-Earth Elements from Acidic Solution Using the Hydrophobic Interactions of
Kaname Saga1, Hideya Suzuki2, Tatsuro Matsumura2
1Laboratory for Advanced Nuclear Energy, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Abstract:
The phase transition-based gelification phenomenon of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) [poly(NIPAAm)] has great potential in developing new waste-free extraction processes. In this study, we realized the direct and complete temperature-swing extraction of all trivalent rare-earth (RE) ions from a multi-component nitric acid solution onto a poly(NIPAAm) gel as chelate complexes with hydrophobic diglycolamide-typed ligands. Moreover, we elucidated that the extractabilities are affected by not only the coordination ability of the ligands with RE ions but also by the hydrophobic interaction between the poly(NIPAAm) and the ligands.
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