Nano‐baskets in Emulsion Liquid Membranes for Selective Extraction of Alkali Metals

Nano‐assisted inclusion separation of alkali metals from basic solutions was reported by inclusion‐facilitated emulsion liquid membrane process. The novelty of this study is application of nano‐baskets of calixarene in the selective and efficient separation of alkali metals as both the carrier and the surfactant. For this aim, four derivatives of p‐tert‐calix4]arene bearing different sulfonamide moieties were synthesized and their inclusion‐extraction parameters were optimized. The selectivity of membrane over more than ten interfering cations was examined and the results reveled that under the optimized operating condition, the degree of inclusion‐extraction of alkali metals was as high as 98‐99%.