Factors affecting the rate of hydrolysis of phenylboronic acid in lab-scale precipitate reactor studies

摘要

Removing aromatic carbon from an aqueous slurry of cesium-137 and other alkali tetraphenylborates by acid hydrolysis will be an important step in preparing high-level radioactive waste for vitrification at the Savannah River Site's Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). Kinetic data obtained in bench-scale precipitate hydrolysis reactors suggest changes in operating parameters to improve product quality in the future plant-scale radioactive operation. The rate-determining step is the removal of the fourth phenyl group, i.e. hydrolysis of phenylboronic acid. Efforts to maximize this rate have established the importance of several factors in the system, including the ratio of copper(II) catalyst to formic acid, the presence of nitrite ion, reactions of diphenylmercury, and the purge gas employed in the system.