Liquid-liquid extraction of No-carrier-added 129Cs with various extractants

Two different iodide targets, BiI₃ and KI were irradiated by α-particles to produce ¹²⁹Cs via ¹²⁷I(α, 2n)¹²⁹Cs reaction. ¹²⁹Cs was separated from bulk Bi (when BiI₃ was used as target) by anion exchanger TOA dissolved in cyclohexane. Irradiation of KI with alpha particle produced ¹²⁹Cs along with minute amount ^44mSc. ^44mSc was successfully separated from ¹²⁹Cs using 18-crown 6 ether dissolved in nitrobenzene.

A dynamic chitosan-based self-healing hydrogel with tunable morphology and its application as an isolating agent

A biopolymer chitosan based hydrogel with good transparency and rapid self-healing activity has been synthesized and utilized to get high purity separation of ¹⁵²Eu (T_1/2 = 13.33 a) and ¹³⁷Cs (T_1/2 = 30.17 a) employing SLX technique.

Selective separation of 152Eu from a mixture of 152Eu and 137Cs using a chitosan based hydrogel

A rapid and novel technique was developed to separate long-lived fission products ¹⁵²Eu (T_1/2 = 13.33 years) and ¹³⁷Cs (T_1/2 = 30.17 years) using a solid liquid extraction (SLX) technique with a chitosan biopolymer based hydrogel (ChG).

Biosorption behavior and mechanism of cesium-137 on Rhodosporidium fluviale strain UA2 isolated from cesium solution

In order to identify a more efficient biosorbent for (137)Cs, we have investigated the biosorption behavior and mechanism of (137)Cs on Rhodosporidium fluviale (R. fluviale) strain UA2, one of the dominant species of a fungal group isolated from a stable cesium solution. We observed that the biosorption of (137)Cs on R. fluviale strain UA2 was a fast and pH-dependent process in the solution composed of R. fluviale strain UA2 (5 g/L) and cesium (1 mg/L). While a Langmuir isotherm equation indicated that the biosorption of (137)Cs was a monolayer adsorption, the biosorption behavior implied that R. fluviale strain UA2 adsorbed cesium ions by electrostatic attraction. The TEM analysis revealed that cesium ions were absorbed into the cytoplasm of R. fluviale strain UA2 across the cell membrane, not merely fixed on the cell surface, which implied that a mechanism of metal uptake contributed largely to the cesium biosorption process. Moreover, PIXE and EPBS analyses showed that ion-exchange was another biosorption mechanism for the cell biosorption of (137)Cs, in which the decreased potassium ions were replaced by cesium ions. All the above results implied that the biosorption of (137)Cs on R. fluviale strain UA2 involved a two-step process. The first step is passive biosorption that cesium ions are adsorbed to cells surface by electrostatic attraction; after that, the second step is active biosorption that cesium ions penetrate the cell membrane and accumulate in the cytoplasm.

Separation of 137mBa from its parent 137Cs from an equilibrium mixture using amide incorporated Amberlite IRC-50

A chelating resin was synthesized by incorporating amide group into Amberlite IRC-50, a weakly acidic polymer. The new resin was employed in the separation of 137mBa from its parent 137Cs from an equilibrium mixture. The adsorbed daughter was recovered using 0.01 M EDTA at pH 10.

Separation of 134Cs and 152Eu using inorganic ion exchangers, zirconium vanadate and ceric vanadate

Two inorganic ion exchangers, zirconium vanadate and ceric vanadate were synthesized and applied to confine and separate (152)Eu and (134)Cs from a synthetic mixture. The percentages of adsorption of the two radionuclides were studied for the two ion exchangers at varying pH conditions. At pH 3, zirconium vanadate adsorbs both Eu and Cs and a column chromatographic separation was achieved using 0.1M EDTA as the eluant. The ceric vanadate ion exchanger showed an increased trend in adsorption for both the radionuclides with increase of pH value from 1 to 6. At pH 1, a column chromatographic separation of these radionuclides from a mixture was achieved, because at this pH only (134)Cs was adsorbed to ceric vanadate bed in the column.