Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2004 International RERTR Meeting

THERMOXID SORBENTS FOR THE SEPARATION AND PURIFICATION OF ⁹⁹MO

A. J. Bakel, S. B. Aase, A. A. Leyva, K. J. Quigley, and G. F. Vandegrift
Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue., Argonne, IL--USA

ABSTRACT
 

The Argonne National Laboratory Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors Program is performing R & D supporting conversion of 99Mo production from high-enriched to low-enriched uranium targets. One of the major obstacles to conversion is the fivefold increase of the amount of uranium needed to produce an equivalent amount of 99Mo. The additional uranium could lead to an increase in the volume of liquid processed and the volume of liquid waste. The use of an efficient, high capacity sorbent would allow for small purification columns and minimum liquid volumes throughout the process. Thermoxid has developed an inorganic sorbent that meets these requirements. Our batch tests show that Thermoxid sorbents have much higher Kd(Mo) values than the commonly used alumina under a wide variety of conditions (20 – 100 g U / L, 0.5 – 1.5 M HNO3, 4, 24, and 48 hours) relevant to acid-side 99Mo production and recovery processes. The Kd(Mo) values for the Thermoxid and alumina sorbents are inversely proportional to both uranium concentration and acidity. Overall, these new sorbents appear to have superior performance and would allow for smaller separation/purification columns than are possible using alumina as the sorbent.

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