Multi-stage extraction and separation of Ln and An using TODGA and DTBA or DTPA accompanying pH adjustment with lactic acid and ethylenediamine

Sasaki, Yuji  ; Kaneko, Masashi   ; Ban, Yasutoshi  ; Matsumiya, Masahiko*; Nakase, Masahiko*; Takeshita, Kenji*

The mutual separation of actinides (An) from lanthanides (Ln) using the masking agent of DTPA (diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid) or DTBA (diethylenetriamine-triacetic acid-bis(diethylacetamide)) in the aqueous phase through DGA extraction, referring TALSPEAK method, is focused. We investigate to obtain the same separation performance using commercially available DTPA on that using DTBA. In this work, we select lactic acid (LA) of pH buffer from 10 organic acids and ethylenediamine (ED) for the pH adjustment. Almost the same D and SF values are obtained among the conditions: TODGA-DTPA-LA-NaOH, TODGA-DTPA-LA-ED, and TODGA-DTBA-LA. The experimental results using batchwise multi-stage extractions show the average yields of Ln (La to Gd) and Am to be 3.73 and 98.1% in the aqueous phase using DGA-DTPA-LA-ED, to be 3.1 and 97.0% using DGA-DTPA-LA-NaOH, and to be 1.61 and 98.7% using DGA-DTBA-LA.