Laboratory studies on the adsorption behavior of americium

Abstract

With increasing global nuclear activities, there is a growing interest in understanding the migration behavior of transuranic elements in the terrestrial environment. The laboratory investigations on the adsorption behavior of AM(III) (∼10−7M) in aqueous solutions showed that there was not adsorption of Am(III) on glass or polyethylene vials from aqueous solutions at pH 0.6 μm) in the aqueous solutions significantly inhibits the adsorption rate. Attempts to fit the kinetic data (collected on filtered [particle size >0.6 μm] or unfiltered distilled water at pH 6) to the reversible or irreversible first order rate equation did not successfully indicate the complexity of the adsorption process. The presence of ∼20mg/liter of humic acid at pH 6.3 completely inhibits the adsorption of Am on glass surfaces.