Selective separation of Am(III) from Ln(III) with a novel synergistic extraction system, N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-methylpyridyl)ethylenediamine (TPEN) and carboxylic acid in 1-octanol

Mirvaliev, R.*; Watanabe, Masayuki   ; Matsumura, Tatsuro  ; Tachimori, Shoichi*; Takeshita, Kenji*

Transmutation is a technology aimed to reduce HLW from reprocessing process. Minor actinides in the HLW will be converted to short-lived nuclides. However, lanthanides in HLW adversely affects on the efficiency of the transmutation. It is well known that separating An(III) and Ln(III) is very difficult because of their similarity of chemical properties. Therefore, the separation is one of the essential subjects to establish the transmutation technology. Considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of new extractants for the separation. N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-methylpyridyl)ethylenediamine (TPEN) demonstrates 100-fold preference for Am(III) over Ln(III) between stability constants with the ions in the aqueous phase. We have reported that Am(III) was selectively extracted from the aqueous phase containing Ln(III) by TPEN in nitrobenzene system and synergistic system with TPEN and D2EHPA in octanol. This work presents our recent results that Am(III) is separated from Eu(III) by a synergistic extraction system with TPEN and decanoic acid diluted with 1-octanol.