Comparison of organic and inorganic ion exchangers for removal of cesium and strontium from simulated and actual Hanford 241-AW-101 DSSF tank waste

摘要

A number of organic and inorganic exchangers are being developed and evaluated for cesium removal from Hanford tank wastes. The exchangers of interest that are investigated in this work include powdered (IONSIV(reg sign) IE-910; referred to as IE-910) and engineered (IONSIV(reg sign) IE-911; referred to as IE-911) forms of the crystalline silico-titanate (CST) inorganic sorbent developed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)/Texas A and M and prepared by UOP; a phenol-formaldehyde (CS-100) resin developed by Rohm and Haas; a resorcinol-formaldehyde (R-F) polymer developed at the Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC) and produced by Boulder Scientific; an inorganic zeolite exchanger produced by UOP (IONSIV(reg sign) TIE-96; referred to as TIE-96); an inorganic sodium titanate produced by Allied Signal/Texas A and M (NaTi); and a macrocyclic organic resin developed and produced by IBC Advanced Technologies (SuperLig(reg sign) 644; referred to as SL-644). Several of these materials are still under development and may not be in the optimal form. The work described in this report involves the direct comparison of the ion exchange materials for the pretreatment of actual and simulated Hanford tank waste. Data on the performance of all of the exchangers with simulated and actual double shell slurry feed (DSSF) is included. The DSSF waste is a mixture of the supernate from tanks 101-AW (70%), 106-AP (20%) and 102-AP (10%). The comparative parameters include radionuclide removal efficiency under a variety of conditions and material properties (e.g., bed density and percent removable water). Cesium and strontium distribution (K(sub d)), lambda ((lambda) = K(sub d) (times) (rho)(sub b)), and decontamination factors (DF) are compared as a function of exchanger contact duration, solution composition (Na and Cs concentration), exchanger/waste phase ratio, and multiple sequential contacts.