Separation of actinides from radioactive feeds using iron titanate based solid phase extractants

Though nuclear energy is going to be an important source to meet the ever increasing power demand in the twenty first century, the safe disposal and recycle of nuclear waste from the spent fuel are some of the key issues to address the concerns of the general public. Actinides with very high radiotoxicities are invariably present in the spent fuel. The main strategy for the radioactive waste remediation aims at their removal/separation that done by solvent and sorbent based extraction. Here, iron titanate based material synthesized by the additive free solvo-thermal decomposition method, in methanol at 200°C for 3h. The prepared materials have been characterised by PXRD, FE-SEM and BET surface area. The PXRD results confirm the formation of FeTiO₃ (JCPDS-95-015-3493) and BET surface area of the material is ∼ 320 cm²/g. FE-SEM images depict the morphology of the prepared material. The prepared materials tested for actinide separation from radioactive feeds, especially, that of Americium(III) separation Kd.Am around 33203 ml/g was observed. Iron titanate showed higher and more selective americium absorption than other actinide ions at pH4