The decontamination of liquid waste containing tellurium

Radioactive tellurium oxides are waste products in I-131 production for pharmaceutical purposes. A five times volume reduction of this waste and its conversion to the solid state has been carried out by conventional chemical methods. A reduction using SnCl2 to free tellurium metal was followed by coprecipitation with in situ formed Fe(OH)3. The filtrate is a fully decontaminated effluent, while the solid-precipitate contains the radioactive isotopes as waste. Decontamination factors better than 104 were normal in the treatment of 45 litre batches. (Auth.)