Diglycolamide pillared zirconium phosphate for the extraction of Am (III) and Eu (III) from dilute nitric acid medium

Inorganic sorbents are extremely proven candidates for the selective separation of toxic and radiotoxic metal ions. Extensive research in this area over few decades has fetched few potential sorbents for separating long lived fission products from aqueous wastes. For instance, zirconium phosphate has been explored extensively for the separation of cesium, strontium other fission products. However, the studies on the use of zirconium phosphate for the separation of trivalent metal ions are inadequate owing to the poor selectivity exhibited by these phosphates towards trivalent metal ions. Nevertheless, the attraction over this material can be augmented by the surface modification of zirconium phosphate with organic complexing moieties. This type of organomodified sorbents offers adequate radiation stability and desirable selectivity for metal ion extraction.In this paper, we report the development of a diglycolamate pillared zirconium phosphate (ZrP-DGA), for the first time, and the adsorption behavior of Eu(III) and Am(III) from dilute nitric acid medium. ZrP-DGA was synthesized by a two step reaction involving mixing of 1M zirconylchloride solution (100 ml)