Treatment of radioactive waste solutions using local clay minerals

The aim of this work is to establish the optimum conditions for the removal of some radioactive elements from their waste solutions. In this respect an exploratory investigation is carried out using the clay minerals kaolinite and vermiculite to test the feasibility of its using for decontamination purposes and volume reduction. The different parameters affecting the sorption capacity of the radioisotopes of 134Cs, 60Co and (152+154)Eu by the investigated clay minerals have been studied. The percent uptake of the metal ions was determined for clay mineral-cation solutions as a function of contact time, ph, metal ion concentrations and presence of some competing cations. Sorption data have been interpreted in terms of Freundlich equation. The presence of some organic complexing agents that affect the sorption process was also investigated. The desorption of the investigated metal ions was studied using different desorption solutions. The obtained data show that the clay mineral vermiculite can be considered as an efficient sorbent for metal cations from their aqueous solutions since the uptake percent is more than 90 percentage for the three elements studied