On-line separation of Pu(III) and Am(III) using extraction and ion chromatography

An on-line method developed for separating plutonium and americium was developed. The method is based on the use of HPLC pump with three analytical chromatographic columns. Plutonium is reduced throughout the procedure to trivalent oxidation state, and is recovered in the various separation steps together with americium. Light lanthanides and trivalent actinides are separated with TEVA resin in thiocyanate/formic acid media. Trivalent plutonium and americium are pre-concentrated in a TCC-II cation-exchange column, after which the separation is performed in CS5A ion chromatography column by using two different eluents. Pu(III) is eluted with a dipicolinic acid eluent, and Am(III) with oxalic acid eluent. Radiochemical and chemical purity of the eluted plutonium and americium fractions were ensured with alpha-spectrometry.

[1]  S. Mou,et al.  Retention behavior of transition metals on a bifunctional ion-exchange column with oxalic acid as eluent. , 2001, Journal of chromatography. A.

[2]  S. Millet,et al.  Evaluation of dry ashing in conjunction with ion chromatographic determination of transition metal ions in pig feed samples. , 2005, Journal of agricultural and food chemistry.

[3]  M. Pimpl,et al.  Improvement of Am and Cm determination in soil samples , 2004 .

[4]  E. Horwitz,et al.  Separation and preconcentration of actinides by extraction chromatography using a supported liquid anion exchanger : application to the characterization of high-level nuclear waste solutions , 1995 .

[5]  J. Riviello,et al.  Use of ion chromatography for the determination of transition metals in the control of sewage-treatment-plant and related waters , 1997 .

[6]  C. Apostolidis,et al.  Single-column extraction chromatographic separation of U, Pu, Np and Am , 2002 .

[7]  O. Donard,et al.  Chromium speciation by hyphenation of high-performance liquid chromatography to inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry—study of the influence of interfering ions , 2003 .

[8]  Aly Hf,et al.  Determination of REEs distribution in monazite and xenotime minerals by ion chromatography and ICP-AES. , 2002 .

[9]  C. Madic,et al.  Trivalent minor actinides/lanthanides separation, using organophosphinic acids , 1998 .

[10]  G. Choppin.  Actinide chemistry: from weapons to remediation to stewardship , 2004 .

[11]  F. D. Hindman.  Neodymium fluoride mounting for .alpha. spectrometric determination of uranium, plutonium, and americium , 1983 .

[12]  M. Veber,et al.  Effect of organic solvents in the on-line thermal lens spectrometric detection of chromium(III) and chromium(VI) after ion chromatographic separation. , 2001, Journal of chromatography. A.

[13]  R. Odoj,et al.  The separation of trivalent actinides from lanthanides by dithiophosphinic acids from HNO3 acid medium , 1998 .

[14]  S. Snyder,et al.  Chiral recognition between dissymmetric Ln(dpa)33- and cobalt(III)-nucleotide complexes in aqueous solution. Enantioselective luminescence quenching as a probe of intermolecular chiral discrimination , 1992 .

[15]  B. Divjak,et al.  Determination of iron in complex matrices by ion chromatography with UV–Vis, thermal lens and amperometric detection using post-column reagents , 1998 .

[16]  Robert M. Smith,et al.  NIST standard reference database 46 version 8.0: NIST critically selected stability constants of metal complexes , 2004 .

[17]  J. Riviello,et al.  Ion chromatography of heavy and transition metals by on- and post-column derivatizations , 2000 .

[18]  J. N. Mathur,et al.  Thiocyanate complexing of some trivalent actinides and lanthanides , 1974 .

[19]  J. Riviello,et al.  New strategies for determination of transition metals by complexation ion-exchange chromatography and post column reaction , 1999 .

[20]  B. Salbu,et al.  Recent advances in the determination of low level plutonium in environmental and biological materials , 1991 .

[21]  L. A. D. L. Heras,et al.  Studies on simultaneous separation and determination of lanthanides and actinides by ion chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry combined with isotope dilution mass spectrometry , 2002 .

[22]  J. M. Cleveland.  The chemistry of plutonium , 1970 .

[23]  J. Riviello,et al.  On-line pretreatment and determination of Pb, Cu and Cd at the microgram l-1 level in drinking water by chelation ion chromatography. , 1998, Journal of chromatography. A.

[24]  A. Sánchez,et al.  Analysis of plutonium in soil samples , 2000 .

[25]  K. Binnemans,et al.  Influence of dipicolinate ligands on the spectroscopic properties of europium(III) in solution , 1997 .

[26]  E. Horwitz,et al.  Am(III) and Eu(III) extraction by aliquat.336 and benzyl substituted quaternary ammonium salts from nitrate and thiocyanate solutions , 1995 .