Evaluation of tertiary pyridine resin for the separation of lanthanides by simulated moving‐bed chromatography |
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| Authors: | Balamurali Sreedhar Tatsuya Suzuki David T. Hobbs Yoshiaki Kawajiri |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA;2. Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Niigata, Japan;3. Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, SC, USA |
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| Abstract: | Lanthanide separation by simulated moving‐bed chromatography was studied as a model system for separating lanthanide fission products and minor actinides from used nuclear fuels. The simulated moving‐bed system was modeled for a tertiary pyridine anion‐exchange resin supported on silica particles as the stationary phase and a mixture of methanol and 1M nitric acid as the mobile phase. Pulse injection tests using a single packed column were used to obtain chromatographic parameters for mathematical modeling of the simulated moving‐bed system. Higher concentrations of methanol improved the separation, but the chromatograms showed evidence of nonlinearity of the isotherms. The mathematical model of the simulated moving‐bed process predicted a production rate of purified samarium and neodymium at 118 g solute/L resin/day and a purity of 99.5%. The optimal methanol ratio for the production rate for various product purities was determined from the model. The excellent separation of Nd and Sm suggests that the simulated moving‐bed system could be applied to the separation of minor actinides such as americium and curium. |
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| Keywords: | Actinides Lanthanides Nuclear fuel Simulated moving‐bed Tertiary pyridine |
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