Separation of trivalent minor actinides from fission products using single R-BTP column extraction chromatography

Matsumura, Tatsuro  ; Matsumura, Kazumi; Morita, Yasuji  ; Koma, Yoshikazu  ; Sano, Yuichi   ; Nomura, Kazunori  

As a part of the Fast Reactor Cycle Technology Development (FaCT) Project, research and development of a reprocessing system has been conducted. In the system, MA(III) (= Am(III) + Cm(III)) are recovered by the method of extraction chromatography from acidic raffinate of the reprocessing process. In general, an extractant for solvent extraction can be used as an impregnated adsorbent for extraction chromatograph system. Because of the similarity of in chemical properties between MA(III) and Lanthanides(III), the MA(III) recovery processes using solvent extraction are composed of two steps; MA(III) - Ln(III) recovery and MA(III)/Ln(III) separation. In many partitioning methods using extraction chromatography, MA(III) separation from the raffinate is achieved by two column units system corresponding to the two steps. In this study, we demonstrated that the direct separation of MA(III) from the simulated raffinate with single column unit system using HEX-BTP adsorbent. The adsorbent has high separation performance of MA(III). DTPA in the feed solution as masking reagent to Pd was effective to prevent to remain of Pd in the column.