| The focus of this research project was on the separation of five actinide elements (Th, U, Np, Pu, and Am) from each other in aqueous media. Many of the current separation techniques are cumbersome, time consuming, costly, create large volumes of waste, and have moderate recoveries. In developing a separation method, the unique chemistries of the actinides were taken into consideration. These include oxidation state variation, complexation, trace element behavior, hydrolytic behavior and matrix interactions.;The overall process for the determination of actinides in environmental samples can be divided into five general steps: sample solubilization, elimination of matrix interferences, separation of the actinide ions from each other, preparation of separated fraction for counting, and alpha particle counting of the separated samples.;The majority of the investigations in this project relates to the most difficult step, the separation of the actinide ions from each other. Selective coprecipitations using zirconium phenylarsonate, calcium-magnesium-yttrium fluorides, neodymium fluoride, and metal iodates were tried. The new ElChroM TRU-Resin;The final developed method utilizes a single-one-milliliter TRU-Resin... |
