Process for recover halocarbons from liquid waste slurries

A process for recovering a halocarbon from a liquid waste slurry containing the halocarbon admixed with one or more contaminants, comprising,

• providing a countercurrent extraction column having two or more agitators and means for moving said agitators, said column also having in the following vertical order from the column top to the column bottom:
• an immiscible liquid outlet, a waste slurry inlet, an immiscible liquid inlet and a raffinate outlet;
• introducing or feeding optionally filtered or unfiltered liquid slurry into said waste slurry inlet;
• introducing or feeding a liquid which is immiscible with the halocarbon component of the waste slurry into the immiscible liquid inlet;
• allowing a continuous flow of liquid waste slurry to move countercurrently to a continuous flow of the immiscible liquid through said two or more agitators that promote dispersion of the liquid waste slurry and the immiscible liquid at each agitator, thus facilitating transfer of contaminants from the waste slurry to the immiscible liquid;
• removing the immiscible liquid containing waste contaminants extracted from said optionally filtered or unfiltered liquid slurry, at said immiscible liquid outlet;
• allowing the halocarbon to separate from the immiscible liquid and the contaminants;
• and
• recovering the halocarbon or raffinate at said raffinate outlet.