Organic solvent extraction of uranium from alkaline nuclear waste

There are proliferation issues with the Plutonium Uranium Redox Extraction process due to the possibility of recovering plutonium. The objective of this research was to evaluate different organic extraction ligands that can remove uranium from the nuclear waste and to determine the most effective organic solvent for extracting uranium only, from alkaline media. The results indicate that Alamine 336 in xylene has zero (0%) extraction capability for surrogate fission products at an optimum extraction time of 15 min. Aliquat 336 in xylene has an extraction percentage of 72% for uranium in 60 min. However, Aliquat 336 in toluene extracted 82% of the uranium from the feed solution after 30 min, decreasing to 76% after 60 min.