Structural organization of an acqeous biphasic system for the use of metal recycling

Aqueous biphasic systems have been recently proposed for metal separation, using an acidic-ionic liquid based solution. Metals are dissolved in ternary mixture and migrate according to their preferential phase when the solution is heated above ~50 C and separates. Fundamental questions on the separation process are raised, such as the structure of the solution in each of the phases. Following a first characterization based on light scattering, we expect an organization at the nanoscale of the ionic liquid that varies as a function of temperature (phase), composition of the solution and metallic ions present in the solution. Simultaneously, we plan to probe the high -Q region to investigate the structure of the water/acid solution. We propose to characterize the structural organization using small and wide angle diffraction on NIMROD, and request 3 days of beamtime for the experiment.