Adsorption behavior of cesium on hybrid microcapsules in spent fuel solution

Onishi, Takashi  ; Koyama, Shinichi  ; Mimura, Hitoshi*

Hybrid microcapsules (H-MCs) are being development for the column separation of Cs from high-level radioactive liquid waste (HLLW). In this paper, adsorption behavior of H-MCs has been evaluated by a batch method in single-element solution and a spent fuel solution prepared from irradiated MOX fuel. Distribution coefficients (s) of various metal ion including Cs were determined for three types of H-MCs (AMP-SG (silica gel enclosing ammonium molybdophosphate), AMP-ALG (calcium alginate gel enclosing ammonium molybdophosphate) and AWP-ALG (calcium alginate gel enclosing ammonium tungstophosphate)) in the spent fuel solution. The three types of H-MCs exhibited higher s for Cs than those for the other elements in spent fuel solution. The difference of for the specific element (Cs) and the other elements was larger than one order of magnitude. Therefore, chromatographic separation of Cs in the spent fuel solution using a column packed with H-MCs is promising. It was the same tendency between the spent fuel solution and the single-element solution that the value for Cs of AWP-ALG was the largest followed by that of AMP-ALG and that of AMP-SG. Thus, the mechanism of adsorption of Cs onto these H-MCs would not be changed in the presence of FPs and MAs. Therefore, these types of H-MCs can be effective for separation of Cs in the spent fuel solutions.