Abstract
Radioactive 129I with a long half-life (1.57 × 107 y) and high mobility is a serious radiohazard and one of the top risk radionuclides associated with its accidental and planned releases to nature. The complex speciation chemistry of iodine makes its removal a complicated task, and usually a single method is not able to remove all iodine species. Especially its oxidized form iodate (IO3−) lacks a selective and effective removal method. Here, the granular aggregates of hydrous zirconium oxides with and without antimony doping were tested for IO3− removal and the effects of contact time, competing anions in different concentrations and pH were examined. The materials showed high selectivity for IO3− (Kd over up to 50,000 ml/g) in the presence of competing ions and relatively fast uptake kinetics (eq. < 1 h). However, B(OH)4− and SO42−, as competing ions, lowered the iodate uptake significantly in basic and acidic solution, respectively. The suitability of the materials for practical applications was tested in a series of column experiments where the materials showed remarkably high apparent capacity for the IO3− uptake (3.2–3.5 mmol/g).Graphic abstract
Highlights
Iodine is a vital element for mammals as it is a critical component of hormones produced in a thyroid gland
X-ray diffraction (XRD) of the zirconium oxide materials shows a broad peak located at 2θ of 30° making the determination of the crystal structure impossible
The XRD and SEM measurements indicate the large aggregates of poorly crystalline zirconia
Summary
Iodine is a vital element for mammals as it is a critical component of hormones produced in a thyroid gland. In order to eliminate the adverse health effects of iodine deficiency, serious efforts have been put in action worldwide to supply the populations with the vital iodine (Andersson et al 2010). In addition to the stable isotope 127I, the thyroid gland absorbs the radioactive iodine isotopes generated by nuclear fission reaction. This increases the absorbed radiation dose of the gland which leads to an elevated risk of thyroid cancer. Iodine has several radioactive isotopes from which the short-lived isotopes, e.g. 131I (t1⁄2 = 8 d) or 133I (t1⁄2 = 20.8 h), pose an acute risk in the case of a nuclear accident, whereas the long-term significance comes from 129I with an extremely long half-life (1.57 × 107 y). In the case of elevated concentrations, the purification of the water is required (Li et al 2018)
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