Identification of diluent degradation products in radiolyzed PUREX solvent

ABSTRACT

Diluent degradation products in gamma radiolyzed Plutonium URanium Extraction (PUREX) solvent were characterized, under the conditions similar to those prevailing in the hot cell for reprocessing. Alkali wash of the degraded solvent followed by vacuum distillation resulted in primary separation. Column separation of the distillation residue followed by spectroscopic analysis using GC-MS and NMR revealed the residue predominantly to be a mixture of dodecan-3-ol, dodecan-4-ol, and dodecan-5-ol in the ratio of 2:1:6, respectively and a mixture of 2-nitrododecane, 3-nitrododecane, 4-nitrododecane, and 5-nitrododecane in the ratio of 2:2:1:1, respectively. The identified compounds were confirmed by synthesizing them individually and comparing their spectral data.

KEYWORDS:

• Column chromatography
• degradation products
• n-dodecane
• spectroscopic characterization
• zirconium retention