Removal of americium from effluent generated during the purification of plutonium by anion exchange

Abstract

Abstract Studies have been carried out on removal of americium from the effluent generated during anion exchange purification of plutonium. Americium 241, generated by the beta decay of Plutonium-241, is the major source of α activity in this highly acidic effluent and its removal would render the waste easily disposable. A simple and effective co-precipitation method, using thorium oxalate has been investigated for the treatment of this alpha active aqueous waste. Experiments have been carried out to identify optimum conditions to obtain high percentage co-precipitation with minimum amount of co-precipitant. Efforts were carried out to correlate the optimum conditions of co-precipitation of americium obtained in these experiments with solubility of thorium oxalate and americium oxalate calculated from solubility products of these compounds, stability constants of thorium and americium oxalate complexes taken from literature. The saturation capacity of thorium oxalate for Am(III) was also calculated by analyzing the K d value data using Langmuir adsorption equation. The strong tendency of americium to get co-precipitated and the high capacity exhibited by thorium oxalate for the uptake of americium indicate feasibility of using this method for the treatment of anion exchange effluent.