Effects of soluble organic complexants and their degradation products on the removal of selected radionuclides from high-level waste. Part 3, Distributions of Sr, Cs, Tc, Pu, and Am onto 33 absorbers from four variations of a 3:1 dilution of Hanford complexant concentrate (CC) simulant: Part 4, The effects of varying dilution ratios on the distributions of Sr, Cs, Tc, Pu,

Abstract

Many of the radioactive waste storage tanks at USDOE facilities contain organic compounds that have been degraded by radiolysis and chemical reactions during decades of storage. Objective of this study was to measure effects of soluble organic complexants and their degradation products on sorption of Sr, Cs, Tc, Pu and Am onto 33 absorbers that in the absence of these organic compounds offer high sorption of these elements. The elements were in a generic simulant for Hanford complexant concentrate supernate that initially contained six organic complexants: EDTA, HEDTA, NTA, citrate, gluconate, and iminodiacetate. This simulant was tested as prepared and after gamma-irradiation to approximately 34 Mrads. Two other variations consisted of the unirradiated and irradiated simulants after treatment at 450C and 15,000 psi in a hydrothermal organic-destruction process. These experiments were conducted with a 3:1 water-to-simulant dilution of each of the four simulant variations. To determine effects of varying dilution ratios on the sorption of these five elements from the unirradiated and gamma-irradiated simulants that were not treated with the hydrothermal process, we measured their distribution from a 1:1 dilution, using 1 M NaOH as the diluent, onto the 12 best-performing absorbers. We then measured the sorption of these five elements from solutions having diluent-simulant ratios of 0, 0.5, 2.0, and 3.0 onto the three absorbers that performed best for sorbing Sr, Pu and Am from the 1:1 dilution. For each of 900 element/absorber/solution combinations, we measured distribution coefficients (Kd values) twice for each period for dynamic contact periods of 30 min, 2 h, and 6 h to obtain information about absorber stability and sorption kinetics. The 5400 measured Kd values indicate that the sorption of Sr, Pu, and Am is significantly decreased by the organic complexants in these simulant solutions, whereas the sorption of Cs and Tc is much less affected.