Abstract: The transfer of trivalent europium ion in a liquid surfactant membrane system is investigated in order toclarify the characteristics of liquid membrane separation process and the availability of this technique forrecovering trivalent lanthanides and actinides.A layered structure model for the emulsion globule is sug-gested.The equations describing the relationship among the effective membrane thickness,the time andother factors are derived and verified experimentally.Results show that under certain conditions the decreas-ing concentration of europium ion in the external phase is proportional to the square root of the time,the acidity of the internal phase and the carrier concentration in the membrane phase.The membrane phase consists of kerosene(solvent),Span-80(surfactant)and di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoricacid(HDEHP,carrier).The internal phase is dilute nitric acid and the external phase is aqueous solu-tion containing Eu(NO_3)_3.The mass transfer rate of europium in this system is high and the recovery ofeuropium may be more than 99%.