BARC/PUB/2019/1046

 
 

Highly selective separation of pertechnetate from waste water

 
     
 
Author(s)

Chaudhury, S.; Mishra, V. G.; Shah, D. J.
(RCD;RACD)

Source

Journal of Water Process Engineering, 2019. Vol. 31: Article no. 100896

ABSTRACT

This work addresses the challenging problem of separating pertechnetate (TcO4) ions from huge (˜1010 times) NO3 background, which is very important for nuclear waste water treatment. It describes the facilitated transport based selective removal of 99mTcO4 from aqueous feed solutions through a Tetraphenylarsonium perchlorate loaded polypropylene based supported liquid membrane. Keeping in mind the possible aqueous waste compositions in the nuclear industry, the transport selectivity of 99mTcO4 has been studied in the presence of varying concentrations of NO3, CO32- and OH ions. As NO3- is the major anion in aqueous nuclear waste solutions, major importance has been given to study the selectivity of 99mTcO4 over NO3 . The transport selectivity has been studied using radiotracer technique as well as ion chromatography technique. Results indicate that the membrane is highly selective towards 99mTcO4 considering even high concentration of NO3 does not hinder its transport appreciably. High decontamination factor for 99mTcO4 over NO3- and other anions has been obtained in all the cases. The promising results show the possibility of using this membrane-based fast process for nuclear waste treatment.

 
 
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