INCREASE IN THE SEPARATION FACTOR BETWEEN AMERICIUM AND CURIUM AND/OR BETWEEN LANTHANIDES IN A LIQUI

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The invention relates to the use of a diglycolamide to increase the separation factor between americium and curium and/or between lanthanides during an extraction operation including contacting an acidic aqueous phase, which contains americium, curium and/or lanthanides, with an organic phase that is immiscible with water, containing at least one extractant in an organic diluent, and then separating said aqueous and organic phases, the diglycolamide being added to said aqueous phase. The invention can be used for processing and recycling irradiated nuclear fuels, in particular to selectively recover americium from highly active aqueous solutions such as raffinates from processing irradiated nuclear fuels by a PUREX or COEXTM process, for processing rare earth minerals such as monazite, xenotime or bastnaesite, in order to facilitate the separation of "light" rare earth elements from "heavy" rare earth elements and from yttrium, or the separation of two rare earth elements having adjacent or close atomic numbers.