Development of ferrocyanide adsorbents for purification of radioactive wastewater
摘要
This article reports the development and characterization of ferrocyanide sorbents based on nickel ferrocyanide and large-pore silica gel (KSKG grade) for the treatment of liquid radioactive waste (LRW). The synthesis procedure, including impregnation of silica gel with nickel ammine complexes followed by treatment with potassium ferrocyanide solution is described in detail. The sorption properties of the resulting materials were evaluated under both static and dynamic conditions using ¹³⁴Cs as a radioactive tracer with results extrapolated to ¹³⁷Cs behavior on the basis of their chemical identity. The optimal particle size range of KSKG silica gel for sorbent preparation was determined to be 0.25–1 mm and 1–3 mm with the optimal nickel loading found to be 27–28 mg Ni per gram of silica gel. Under static conditions, distribution coefficients of up to 1.5 × 10⁴ ml/g and adsorption degrees exceeding 99.6% were achieved. Under dynamic conditions, a purification factor of no less than 100 was maintained when processing up to 10 L of real LRW through a 2 g mixed sorbent column at a flow rate of 0.5–5 ml/min. The sorbents demonstrated excellent chemical stability in acidic media with cesium desorption below 0.3% in HCl and HNO₃ solutions.