A two-step process was developed to achieve a complete treatment of aqueous liquid wastes containing lanthanides, as nuclear fission products surrogates, and micelles. In a first step, complexation of lanthanides with organo-phosphorous ligands in an aqueous bulk phase was investigated. This complexation tends to make the complexed ion go from the bulk phase to the vicinity of the micelles because of the increase in hydrophobicity. Then, in a second step the simultaneous removal of micelles and lanthanides was performed using a sal-gel process, making a mainly inorganic powder final waste suitable to the field of nuclear industry. The effect of the hydrophobicity of ligands was then studied in a solution containing amphiphilic block copolymers micelles. The results showed both lanthanides and micelles removal close to 100% for systems with high enough hydrophobicity. For instance, the most efficient removal were reached for ligands with at least six atoms of carbons in the hydrophobic chain. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.