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Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes

We explored two approaches to recover uranium and plutonium from aqueous solutions at pH 4 and pH 7 using water-soluble star-like polyacrylamide polymers with a dextran core. In the first approach, a solution comprising a neutral or ionomer polymer was mixed with a radionuclide solution to form poly...

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Autores principales: Bliznyuk, Valery N., Kutsevol, Nataliya V., Kuziv, Yuliia I., Husson, Scott M., DeVol, Timothy A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9460127/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36080514
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14173441
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author Bliznyuk, Valery N.
Kutsevol, Nataliya V.
Kuziv, Yuliia I.
Husson, Scott M.
DeVol, Timothy A.
author_facet Bliznyuk, Valery N.
Kutsevol, Nataliya V.
Kuziv, Yuliia I.
Husson, Scott M.
DeVol, Timothy A.
author_sort Bliznyuk, Valery N.
collection PubMed
description We explored two approaches to recover uranium and plutonium from aqueous solutions at pH 4 and pH 7 using water-soluble star-like polyacrylamide polymers with a dextran core. In the first approach, a solution comprising a neutral or ionomer polymer was mixed with a radionuclide solution to form polymer–metal complexes that were then retained by ultrafiltration (UF) membranes under applied pressure. The same polymers were first deposited on the membrane in the second approach using pressure-driven flow. The applied polymers had an overall diameter of gyration of 120 nm, which exceeded the nominal diameter of the UF membrane pores. The polymers showed a high affinity to uranyl but could also be used to extract Pu from neutral or near-neutral pH solutions. Direct-flow single-step filtration and alpha spectrometry demonstrated that the UF membranes containing star-like copolymers could recover 99% of U and up to 60% of Pu from deionized water after filtering 15 mL solutions containing 25 ppm and 33 ppb of the actinides, correspondingly. The sorption capacity of the polymers for uranium could be measured as 1mg U per mg of the polymer after six subsequent filtration steps. Alpha spectroscopy of the deposited actinides revealed peculiarities of the structural organization of polymers and their complexes with U or Pu, depending on the approach. Though both approaches were efficient, the second approach (deposition of the polymer on the membrane followed by filtration) has an additional advantage of protecting the membrane pores from capillary collapse by filling them with the polymer chains. Therefore, these polymer-modified membranes could be used either in continuous or multi-step filtration process with drying after each step without deterioration of their sorption characteristics.
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spelling pubmed-94601272022-09-10 Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes Bliznyuk, Valery N. Kutsevol, Nataliya V. Kuziv, Yuliia I. Husson, Scott M. DeVol, Timothy A. Polymers (Basel) Article We explored two approaches to recover uranium and plutonium from aqueous solutions at pH 4 and pH 7 using water-soluble star-like polyacrylamide polymers with a dextran core. In the first approach, a solution comprising a neutral or ionomer polymer was mixed with a radionuclide solution to form polymer–metal complexes that were then retained by ultrafiltration (UF) membranes under applied pressure. The same polymers were first deposited on the membrane in the second approach using pressure-driven flow. The applied polymers had an overall diameter of gyration of 120 nm, which exceeded the nominal diameter of the UF membrane pores. The polymers showed a high affinity to uranyl but could also be used to extract Pu from neutral or near-neutral pH solutions. Direct-flow single-step filtration and alpha spectrometry demonstrated that the UF membranes containing star-like copolymers could recover 99% of U and up to 60% of Pu from deionized water after filtering 15 mL solutions containing 25 ppm and 33 ppb of the actinides, correspondingly. The sorption capacity of the polymers for uranium could be measured as 1mg U per mg of the polymer after six subsequent filtration steps. Alpha spectroscopy of the deposited actinides revealed peculiarities of the structural organization of polymers and their complexes with U or Pu, depending on the approach. Though both approaches were efficient, the second approach (deposition of the polymer on the membrane followed by filtration) has an additional advantage of protecting the membrane pores from capillary collapse by filling them with the polymer chains. Therefore, these polymer-modified membranes could be used either in continuous or multi-step filtration process with drying after each step without deterioration of their sorption characteristics. MDPI 2022-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9460127/ /pubmed/36080514 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14173441 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bliznyuk, Valery N.
Kutsevol, Nataliya V.
Kuziv, Yuliia I.
Husson, Scott M.
DeVol, Timothy A.
Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title_full Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title_fullStr Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title_full_unstemmed Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title_short Efficient Retention and Alpha Spectroscopy of Actinides from Aqueous Solutions Using a Combination of Water-Soluble Star-like Polymers and Ultrafiltration Membranes
title_sort efficient retention and alpha spectroscopy of actinides from aqueous solutions using a combination of water-soluble star-like polymers and ultrafiltration membranes
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9460127/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36080514
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14173441
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