Sorption of americium(III) and europium(III) from nitric acid solutions by a novel diglycolamide-grafted silica-based resins: Part 2. Sorption isotherms, column and radiolytic stability studies

Abstract

Two novel diglycolamide-grafted silica-based resins (DGSRs) were used for the sorption of trivalent actinides and lanthanides from 3 M nitric acid solutions. The sorption of Am(III) onto the resin containing one diglycolamide (DGA) moiety (DGSR-I) was less efficient than the resin containing two DGA moieties (DGSR-II) with Lagergren first order rate constants of (1.20 ± 0.03) × 10^–3 s^–1 and (2.01 ± 0.05) × 10^–3 s^–1, respectively. The maximum sorption of Eu(III) (used as a representative of the trivalent lanthanide/actinide ions in radioactive wastes) was 10.4 ± 1.1 mg g^–1 and 13.9 ± 1.3 mg g^–1 by the DGSR-I and DGSR-II, respectively. The sorption of Eu(III) on the grafted silica resins followed the Langmuir monolayer sorption phenomenon with sorption energies of 16.5 ± 2.05 and 17.8 ± 1.6 kJ mol^–1 for DGSR-I and DGSR-II, respectively. Column experiments revealed that the breakthrough capacity of Eu(III) on the DGSR-II column was higher than that on the DGSR-I column. Efficient elution could be achieved with a 0.01 M EDTA solution. The radiolytic stability of the resins was ascertained by exposing the resins to a gamma ray dose up to 1030 kGy resulting in a decrease of the K_d values with about 50%; at doses <500 kGy the K_d values remained unaffected.