Coprecipitation of trace ruthenium with several metal hydroxides

This paper reports a study of Ru-103 coprecipitation from a stock nitric acid solution with titanium, yttrium, gadolinium, europium, aluminum, zirconium, and iron hydroxides, the aim being to see how ruthenium behaves during coprecipitation as a function of the type of collector. Titanium hydroxide was used to study the effect of various factors involved, such as salt background, microand macrocomponent concentrations and the effect of foreign ions. It is concluded that small amounts of ruthenium can be concentrated from a nitrate solution over a wide pH range by means of the metal hydroxides studied.