Abstract
Ion exchange column loading and elution of cesium from spherical resorcinol-formaldehyde resin have been conducted for two potential non-acid eluants – (NH4)2CO3 and CH3COONH4. The results revealed encouraging cesium elution performance. Virtually complete cesium elution was achieved with 28 or less bed volumes. Elution performance was fairly high at ∼8 bed volumes for some of the eluants and also practically comparable to the benchmark acid eluant (HNO3). Elution is generally enhanced by increasing the concentration and pH of the eluants, and combining the eluants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was funded by the United States Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.
Notes
nm = not measured.
n/a = not applicable.
Temperature of each process step = 25 ± 2°C.
Resin bed volume (BV) = 4.2 mL (in simulant solution).
a The loading step duration for the first three simultaneous runs was 2.5 hours. See Table 4 for the specific runs.
Loading feed solution = Tank 2 F simulant.
Loading feed cesium concentration = 513 mg/L.
Loading flow rate (nominal) = 3 BV/hr.
Resin bed volume = 4.2 mL (in simulant solution).
Resin dry mass = 1.20 g H-form resin.
n/a = not applicable.
a The loading step duration was 2.5 hours. The duration for the remaining runs was 2.67 hours.