DEVELOPMENT OF A SELECTIVE SORBENT FOR LIQUID RADIOACTIVE WASTE DECONTAMINATION FROM STRONTIUM

The types of sorption media widely used nowadays for decontaminating liquid radioactive waste (LRW) from strontium are the following: organic ion exchange resins, natural and synthetic zeolites, as well as phosphates and hydrous oxides of various transition metals. The experience accumulated to date shows the majority of the above-mentioned sorbents to be not effective enough for decontaminating LRW with the salt bearing over 1 g/L. The latter phenomenon is connected with the low selectivity of those sorbents towards strontium in the presence of interfering ions, especially calcium ions. In the paper we present the development of a technique for synthesizing the manganese (III, IV) hydroxide based selective sorbent; results of the sorbent characterization, basic operational and sorption-selective parameters with respect to strontium; results of its practical application.