Recovery of palladium from basic reprocessing waste of spent nuclear fuel

The methods including collection method, extraction-collection method, and special extraction-collection method have been investigated for high speed and efficient recovery of palladium from high pH reprocessing waste of spent nuclear fuel. The equilibrium of the reactions can be obtained in less than 1 minute. The maximum percent recovery of Pd is about 89%, 96% and 97% for collection, extraction collection, and special extraction methods, respectively. Nearly 100% of back extraction of Pd in the organic phase can be attained by using 7.4M ammonia solution with a phase ratio of 1:1. The purity of the Pd products is high. The percent recovery of Pd is constant up to 5x103 Gy of irradiation dose. (author). 11 refs., 3 figs., 4 tabs