Development of a radiochemical method for extraction chromatographic separation of Pb and Bi radioisotopes of forensic and environmental interest

This work describes the purification and separation of some radionuclides of ${}^{210}$Pb and/or ${}^{210}$Bi that might be used in calibration of nuclear spectroscopic instruments for forensic purposes and environmental studies. The retention and desorption investigations have been done by Dowex HCR-S/S resin as the cationic exchanger by batch mode. Full retention of metal ions was achieved in 0.1 M HNO${}_3$ solution after an equilibration period of 2 h at room temperature. The uptake of Pb and Bi is reached to more than 95 and 85%, respectively. Desorption studies by several reagents indicated that 1 M citric acid and ammonium acetate are efficient to elute and separate Bi and Pb. Taking into consideration all the above obtained results, column applications packed by the Dowex HCR-S/S resin were carried out to separate ${}^{214,210}$Pb and ${}^{214}$Bi radionuclides either in TENORM-concentrate or old certified reference of ${}^{226}$Ra solution. The column application results revealed that the recovery of Pb and Bi radionuclides was ∼93%. In the radiochemical part, the eluted Bi was impure due to presence of 23% Pb. In contrast, 70% of pure Pb was obtained. Thus, the radionuclides ${}^{210}$Pb can be recovered from several waste resources by this method. It can be concluded that the Dowex HCR resin can be an alternative economic material that could be used to produce ${}^{210}$Pb from the TENORM wastes generated from some strategic industries.