The Adaptation of an Ion Exchange Process to Remote Operation in a Radiochemical Separations Plant

Technical Report · Fri Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1961

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1841692· OSTI ID:1841692

Mottel, William J. ^[1]; Proctor, John F. ^[1]

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1. Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Aiken, SC (United States)

In general, ion exchange processes have advantages over solvent extraction processed when batch operations are indicated; that is, when the quantities of material to be handled are small and the desired product concentrations are high. Conversely, solvent extraction is usually preferred when large quantities of material are to be processed because it is readily adaptable to continuous operations. Ion exchange, although extensively used in laboratory radiochemical separations, has not often been applied in large production facilities that handle highly radioactive solutions, The limited application of ion exchange in this field can be attributed to the difficulties associated with the adaptation of these processes to remote operations, principally the problems of handling the solid ion exchange resins. This report describes ion exchange equipment and techniques that have been developed for a specific remote process application, namely, the use of anion exchange process to recover Pu²³⁸ and Np²³⁷ from irradiated neptunium oxide target elements.

• Research Organization: Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM)
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-08SR22470
• OSTI ID: 1841692
• Report Number(s): DP-0620
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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