Cesium Ion Exchange Loading Kinetics Testing with SRF Resin

Ion exchange using the Spherical Resorcinol-Formaldehyde (SRF) resin has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection for use in the Pretreatment Facility of the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) and for potential application in an at-tank deployment for removing 137Cs. Recent proposed changes to the WTP ion exchange process baseline indicate that loading may include a broader range of sodium molarities (2 to 8 M) due to caustic leaching and higher temperatures (50°C) to alleviate post-filtration precipitation issues prior to reaching the ion exchange columns. Therefore, it is important to understand the behavior of SRF resin performance under the conditions expected with the new equipment and process changes. This research examined the impact of linear load velocity (4, 6, 8 cm/min), initial sodium concentration (2, 5, 8 M), initial sodium-to-cesium ratio (1.4E + 05, 2.1E + 05, 2.8E + 05 mol/mol), initial sodium-to-hydroxide ratio (2.0, 3.0, 4.0 mo...