The retention of iodine fission products on iodide precipitates

A fast and selective method has been developed for the separation of the iodine fission products in the primary cooling water of nuclear reactors. The parameters of the selective retention were studied on silver, thallium(I) and mercury(II) iodide. Retention experiments were performed on adequately thick layers of “free” precipitates and on precipitates fixed in filter paper. The latter method substantially increases the retention capacity. The papers with fixed precipitate are easy to handle. The filter paper with silver iodide precipitate was found to be the most satisfactory for the selective retention of fission iodine from reactor water.