PURPOSE: To recover a FeCl3-contg. liquid etchant, by bringing a liquid etchant into contact with an organic solvent diluted with specified petroleum hydrocarbon to extract iron chloride, further bringing the organic solvent into contact with water, and then adding ferric hydroxide to a stripping solution.

CONSTITUTION: An aqueous solution 1 containing Fe and Cl ions is introduced to a step 2 for extracting HFeCl4 and then brought into contact with an organic solvent 3 to extract Fe ion existent in the aqueous solution as a chloride complex. Thereafter, the organic solvent extractively containing the iron chloride complex is introduced to a stripping step 4 and brought into contact with water to obtain an aqueous FeCl3+HCl solution 5. At the same time, the organic solvent is regenerated. In the third step, the aqueous FeCl3+HCl solution is introduced to a dissolving step 6, where Fe(OH)37 is added to consume an excess amount of free HCl and to raise the concentration of FeCl3. Hence, a reusable liquid FeCl3 etchant 8 is recovered.