The United States of America As Represented by the Department of Energy

Boris N Zaitsev

Terry Allen Todd

Jack D Law

Ronald Scott Herbst

Valeriy Nicholiavich Romanovskiy

Ken N Brewer

Vyacheslav M Esimantovskiy

Evgeniy G Dzekun

Leonard N Lazarev

Cesium and strontium are extracted from aqueous acidic radioactive waste containing rare earth elements, technetium and actinides, by contacting the waste with a composition of a complex organoboron compound and polyethylene glycol in an organofluorine diluent mixture. In a preferred embodiment the complex organoboron compound is chlorinated cobalt dicarbollide, the polyethylene glycol has the formula RC,H,(OCH,CH,),OH, and the organofluorine diluent is a mixture of bis-tetrafluoropropyl ether of diethylene glycol with at least one of bis-tetrafluoropropyl ether of ethylene glycol and bis-tetrafluoropropyl formal. The rare earths, technetium and the actinides (especially uranium, plutonium and americium), are extracted from the aqueous phase using a phosphine oxide in a hydrocarbon diluent, and reextracted from the resulting organic phase into an aqueous phase by using a suitable strip reagent.

Extraction processes and solvents for recovery of cesium, strontium, rare earth elements, technetium and actinides from liquid radioactive waste

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St. Petersburg, Russia

Boris N Zaitsev