Removal of185W,99Mo and125Sb radioisotopes from aqueous solutions using polyamine incorporated polysaccharides

Polyamino group-containing resins act both as chelating ion exchangers and weakly basic anion exchangers depending upon the species in contact in the solution. In the present work, ion exchangers based on polyamine incorporated polysaccharides (cellulose and galactomannan or guaran) have been used for removal of radioisotopes of¹⁸⁵W as WO ₄ ^2– ,⁹⁹Mo as MoO ₄ ^2– and¹²⁵Sb as Sb³⁺ from their separate aqueous solutions. These chelating anion exchangers have been synthesized by reaction of polysaccharides with epichlorohydrin followed by the respective polyamines as nucleophiles in a strongly alkaline medium. WO ₄ ^2– and MoO ₄ ^2– are adsorbed from their aqueous solutions through anion exchange process by chloride form of cellulose-triethylenetetraamine (cellulose-trien), cellulose-tetraethylenepentaamine (cellulose-tetren), guaran-triethylenetetraamine (guar-trien) and guar-tetraethylenepentaamine (guar-tetren) weakly basic anion exchangers. Guar-tetren chelating polymer has been found to be highly selective for¹²⁵Sb isotopes presumably due to the presence of chelating cis-hydroxy and tetren groups in the galactomannan matrix.