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Investigation on the co-precipitation of transuranium elements from alkaline solutions by the method of appearing reagents
Highly alkaline radioactive waste solutions originating from production of plutonium for military purposes are stored in underground tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site. The purification of alkaline solutions from neptunium and plutonium is important in the treatment and disposal of these wastes. This report describes scoping tests with sodium hydroxide solutions, where precipitation techniques were investigated to perform the separation. Hydroxides of iron (III), manganese (II), cobalt (II, III), and chromium (III); manganese (IV) oxide, and sodium uranate were investigated as carriers. The report describes the optimum conditions that were identified to precipitate these carriers homogeneously throughout the solution by reductive, hydrolytic, or catalytic decomposition of alkali-soluble precursor compounds by a technique called the Method of Appearing Reagents. The coprecipitation of pentavalent and hexavalent neptunium and plutonium was investigated for the candidate agents under optimum conditions and is described in this report along with the following results. Plutonium coprecipitated well with all tested materials except manganese (IV) oxide. Neptunium only coprecipitated well with uranate. The report presents a hypothesis to explain these behaviors. Further tests with more complex solution matrices must be performed