Boron Isotopic Separation By Chromatography Technology

Boron element is composed of boron-10(¹⁰B)and boron-11(¹¹B),which account for 19.8%and 80.2%,respectively.Due to the property of large thermal-neutron cap-ture cross-section,¹⁰B is utilized in military industry and nuclear industry to trap thermal neutrons and plays a significant role in boron neutron capture therapy?BNCT?for cancer treatment.However,¹⁰B cannot be directly applied because of its low nat-ural abundance.Generally,the abundance of ¹⁰B must reach 80–85%for the nuclear reactor or even higher in other fields and thus enriched ¹⁰B isotope by isotopic separa-tion is in high demand.Adsorption-based chromatographic separation is thought as a good candidate for separation of boron isotopes,because of its low cost,simple operation and high effi-ciency comparing with chemical exchange distillation.Among various boron adsor-bents,boron-specific resins exhibit satisfactory boron isotopic separation factors.This study aims to investigate chromatographic separation of boron isotopes with the packing of pyrocatechol-modified resins?CL-RESIN?:The maximum static boron isotopic separation factor with CL-RESIN was 1.13at 25°C,thus adsorption-based boron isotopic separation in a chromatographic col-umn packing with CL-RESIN was further studied by experiments and simulations.¹¹B had greater affinity with CL-RESIN in concentrated boric acid solution with dy-namic boron isotopic separation factor of 1.15 and enriched ¹⁰B was collected in ef-fluent.Possible boron isotopic separation mechanism was discussed in detail and re-cycling ability of CL-RESIN was explored through regeneration processes.Simulation of boron isotopic separation was completed,and simulated results by Aspen Chromatograph were in good agreement with experimental breakthrough curves under the same conditions.Furthermore,the dynamic behaviors of boron iso-topic separation were predicted by simulation under different operating conditions.Response surface methodology?RSM?was employed to determine optimized operat-ing conditions in a chromatographic column.Consequently,the optimized operating conditions were achieved with flow rate of 1.24 mL·min^-1,44 cm column length and feed concentration of 8.648 g·L^-1,with the optimized ¹⁰B annual yield of 59.60 g.