JCEJ Outstanding Paper Award of 2011

Abstract

JCEJ Paper Award is given for outstanding contribution to chemical engineering documented in a paper published in Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan. e selection is made by means of a three-stage process consisting of nomination, rst round elimination, and point rating. Outstanding Paper Awards Subcommittee of the journal has assessed the 132 papers published in 2011, corresponding to volume 44. e subcommittee selected the candidates of the award and the members of the editorial board con rmed the selection. As a result of this process, the editorial board nally selected the following ve papers for the award of 2011. "Application of Ionic Liquids to Extraction Separation of Rare Earth Metals with an E ective Diglycol AmicAcid Extractant" by Fukiko Kubota, Yousuke Shimobori, Yuzo Baba, Yusuke Koyanagi, Kojiro Shimojo, Noiho Kamiya and Masahiro Goto, Kyushu University and Japan Atomic Energy Agency (Kubota et al., 2011) Citation: e present paper demonstrated that quantitative extraction of rare earth metal ions such as Y 3+ and Eu 3+was selectively achieved into various ionic liquids over the base metal ion Zn 2+ using a novel extractant. e extraction e ciency was also found to be enhanced for the shorteralkyl-chain imidazolium ionic liquid compared to that for a conventional organic solvent system. Furthermore, the extraction mechanism was elucidated and recovery of the metal ions from the extracting phase was also demonstrated. Hence, the present paper is expected to contribute to the development of future revolutionary rare earth metallurgy processing and thus deserves the Outstanding Paper Award.