Method for separating zirconium and hafnium

Abstract

A method for separating zirconium and hafnium from a mixture of ZrCl4 and HfCl4 containing 3 wt. % or less of Hf based on Zr+Hf, the method includes the following steps: 1) hydrolyzing a mixture of ZrCl4 and HfCl4 in an aqueous solution of strong inorganic acid, so as to form an aqueous solution having 7 to 12 moles of acid per liter; 2) passing the solution obtained at step 1) in an anion exchanging resin; 3) optionally eluting a fraction of said aqueous solution having 7 to 12 moles of acid per liter, enriched in hafnium; 4) removing the resin of the acid solution containing Zr and Hf; 5) passing in the resin an aqueous solution to detach the zirconium compounds fixed to the resin, and recovering a zirconium-enriched fraction.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.