Isolation of americium by the displacement chelating chromatography
Abstract
The review of results obtained during the americium separation studies at the Laboratory for Radioactive
Elements Chromatography of the IPCE RAS is given. To obtain the high purity americium preparations
from solutions of the complex composition the displacement complexing chromatography (DCC) technique
was used.
Two stage technology was used for the separation of isotopic pure americium-241 in the amount of
50-100 g from solutions containing all elements of the rare earth group. The 1st stage was conducted for the
efficient decontamination of americium from light and transition rare earth elements (REE) using the eluate
containing 0.025 mole/L of DTPA and 0.015 mole/L of ammonium citrate. During the 2nd stage the final endpolishing
of americium from heavy REE was performed using the solution containing 0.073 mole/L NTA.
In the separation process of americium from solutions of cooled plutonium the admixture elements
present in the solution served as intercalators for the separation of americium and cerium. This process version
allows for the complete separation of americium from REE admixtures.
Hundreds of milligrams of curium and americium were separated via the pressurized ion exchange
chromatography (PIX-method) using a fine grain sorbent with the grain size of 35-70 µm. The sorbent
enabled to increase the elution flow rate by a factor of 5, thus reducing the irradiation dose on the eluent and
sorbent.
The experimental separation of weight quantities of americium from high radioactive solutions after
spent nuclear fuel (SNF) reprocessing was tested under the ‘PRORYV’ Project at the ‘Mayak’ chemical
combine. An about 9 g fraction of Cm-244 containing as high as 6% of Аm-241,243 and a 65 g fraction of
Аm-241,243 containing as high as 0.8% of Cm-244 by mass and 0.1% of Eu-154,155 by γ-activity were obtained.
The developed techniques were included into the baseline radiochemical technologies for the separation
of radionuclides at RosAtom enterprises.
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