Separation of lanthanides and actinides on a bistriazinyl pyridine coated reverse phase column

Abstract

Abstract The retention behaviour of uranium, thorium, americium and lanthanides has been investigated, using a reverse phase C18 column modified with 2,6-bis(5,6-dipropyl-1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)pyridine (n-Pr-BTP) with the aim of investigating rapid lanthanide-actinide separations by HPLC technique. Nitric acid and α-hydroxy isobutyric acid (α-HIBA) have been employed as the mobile phase. The influence of mobile phase pH and concentration on the retention of metal ions has been studied. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of BTP coated reverse phase columns as analytical columns for the fast separation of the minor actinides from the lanthanides in the high-level waste (HLW), and to explore whether such columns can be used on a preparative scale for the purification and the recovery of minor actinides from the high-level waste (HLW). It was observed that reverse phase columns modified with BTP showed greater affinity for actinides but exhibited no retention for lanthanides and the lanthanide-actinide separations could be achieved in nitric acid mobile phase, without the need for complexing agents. Americium was separated from the lanthanides with good peak profile and baseline resolution in both nitric acid as well as α-HIBA as the mobile phase. Based on this, the separation of americium from the lanthanides in the HLW was also demonstrated. The retention of a significant amount of thorium by the column in breakthrough studies also indicated that these columns can be used for preparative scale purification of the actinides.