Evaluation of Potential Eluants for Non-Acid Elution of Cesium from Spherical Resorcinol-Formaldehyde Resin

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.

Keywords:

• cesium
• ion exchange
• non-acid elution
• spherical resorcinol-formaldehyde resin

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.