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Selective extraction of actinides using EEBEHBA grafted polymer: A green process for nuclear reprocessing program
Date Issued
06-12-2004
Author(s)
Maheswari, M. Akhila
Subramanian, M. S.
Abstract
A new amide grafted polymer has been developed using Merrifield chloromethylated resin (inert solid support) anchored with 4-ethoxy-4-ethyl-N,N- bis-2-ethylhexylbutanamide (EEBEHBA), for the selective extraction of actinides from lanthanides in acidic matrices. The polymer has been characterized using 13C- CPMAS (cross-polarized magic angle spin) NMR spectroscopy, FT-NIR spectroscopy, and also by CHN elemental analysis. The fabricated polymeric sorbent shows greater selectivity in extracting U(VI) over Th(IV) and other lanthanides, even under high acidities (2-4 M HNO3). The grafted polymer offers good distribution ratio (D) values for actinides of interest over a wide range of solution acidity, with the maximum metal sorption capacity being 0.629 mmol g-1 and 0.214 mmol g-1 for U(VI) and Th(IV), respectively, in 4 M HNO3 medium. The functionalized resin matrix shows moderately fast metal ion phase exchange kinetics, with t1/2 values < 3 min for both the analytes. The notable feature of the resin is the quantitative desorption of actinides using distilled water as eluant, a simple green process of recovery which has not yet been reported in the literature using polymeric sorbents. The practical utility has been tested using synthetic low-level nuclear reprocessing mixtures and also with real samples like monazite sand. The analytical data obtained from triplicate measurements are within 3.6% rsd reflecting the reproducibility and reliability of the developed method.
Volume
39