Evaluation of Polymer Ligand Extractants for the Rapid Extraction and Sample Preparation of Plutonium for Field Screening of Samples

摘要

A method was developed to produce a thin Polymer Ligand Extractants (PLE) for plutonium extraction using HDEHP ligands. HDEHP incorporated PLFs were successful in extracting plutonium from the nitric acid. It showed extraction dependency on both nitric concentration and ligand to polymer ratio. A 1:5 ligand to polymer ratio PLF gave the best combination of alpha spectroscopy resolution and plutonium recovery in this study. 1:10 and 1:20 PLFs had close to zero percent recovery in most nitric concentration tested. Whereas 1:2 ratio PLF had good plutonium recovery but consistently had bad alpha spectrum resolution. The alpha spectrum resolution from 1:2 ratio PLF was too board to be effectively used in any meaningful analysis.