Adsorption of an uranyl ion onto a divinylbenzene amidoxime resin in sodium carbonate solutions

Abstract

Distribution coefficients (Kd) of uranyl ion onto divinylbenzene amidoxime resins were measured in sodium carbonate solution and the Kd values were increased up to about 70 as the resin bead size was decreased. At a condition of 0.0044 M Na2CO3, the adsorption capacity for uranium was 3.4 μmole U/g-resin. The Kd values in the 0.5 M Na2CO3-NaHCO3 solution, ranging from pH 9 to pH 11, revealed that they were increased as the pH increased and revealed lower values than those in the pure sodium carbonate solution. The amidoxime resins were characterized by FTIR-ATR showing the absorption bands of the amidoxime functional groups. A species of the uranyltricarbonate complex, UO2(CO3)3 −4, was confirmed by UV-Vis spectroscopy, revealing four absorption peaks between 400 and 500 nm. Uranium was separated from some fission products by a column operation. However, most of the uranium and fission products were eluted before an adsorption and only a small amount of uranium was adsorbed onto the resin due to the low capacity of the resin.