New anion-exchange resins for improved separations of nuclear materials. Mid-year progress report

Technical Report · Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/13729· OSTI ID:13729

Barr, M E

'The authors are developing multi-functional anion-exchange resins that facilitate anion uptake by carefully controlling the structure of the anion receptor site. The new ion-exchange resins interface the rapidly developing field of ion-specific chelating ligands with robust, commercial ion exchange technology. The overall objective of the research is to develop a predictive capability which allows the facile design and implementation of multi-functionalized anion exchange materials which selectively sorb metal complexes of interest from targeted process, waste, and environmental streams. The basic scientific issues addressed are actinide complex speciation along with modeling of the metal complex/functional site interactions in order to determine optimal binding-site characteristics. Their approach uses a thorough determination of the chemical species both in solution and as bound to the resin to determine the characteristics of resin active sites which can actively facilitate specific metal-complex sorption to the resin. The first year milestones were designed to allow us to build off of their extensive expertise with plutonium in nitrate solutions prior to investigating other, less familiar systems. While the principle investigators have successfully developed actinide chelators and ion-exchange materials in the past, the authors were fully aware that integration of this two fields would be challenging, rewarding and, at times, highly frustrating. Relatively small differences in the substrate (cross-linkage, impurities), the active sites (percent substitution, physical accessibility), the actinide solution (oxidation state changes, purity) and the analytical procedures (low detection limits) can produce inconsistent sorption behavior which is difficult to interpret. The potential paybacks for success, however, are enormous. They feel that they have learned a great deal about how to control these numerous variables to produce consistent, reliable analysis of actinide sorption behavior with the new and baseline anion-exchange materials. The four Year 1 (FY97) milestones are listed below along with an update on the progress towards their completion.'

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), Office of Science and Risk Policy
• OSTI ID: 13729
• Report Number(s): EMSP-54770-97; ON: DE00013729
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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05
54
Progress Report
Ligands
Ion Exchange
Chemical Preparation
Radioactive Wastes
Chemical Wastes
Decontamination
Decommissioning
High-Level Radioactive Wastes
Radioactive Materials
Remedial Action
PROGRESS REPORT
LIGANDS
ION EXCHANGE
CHEMICAL PREPARATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
CHEMICAL WASTES
DECONTAMINATION
DECOMMISSIONING
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
REMEDIAL ACTION