Recovery of plutonium from aqueous waste solutions using porous zirconia spherical particles

Porous zirconia spherical particles have been prepared by internal gelation process. During preparation of these spherical particles, a cationic surfactant, cetrimide was added in the feed broth to increase the surface area and porosity of the particles. The sorption behavior of plutonium was investigated on this material from different complexing aqueous media from the recovery point of view. Distribution ratio studies have been carried out to investigate the effect of varying concentrations of oxalic acid, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate to optimize the conditions of sorption of plutonium on this ion exchange material.