Precipitation process for decontaminating water-soluble SRP radioactive waste

A precipitation and adsorption process has been developed for the removal of cesium, strontium, and plutonium from high-level radioactive waste salt solution. Sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB) is used to precipitate cesium as the very insoluble cesium tetraphenylborate, and sodium titanate slurry is used to adsorb strontium and plutonium. The precipitate/adsorbate is then separated from the decontaminated salt solution by crossflow filtration. Chemical and small-scale engineering studies with actual waste are reported in which the effect of several variables on the decontamination factors and filter performance are defined. Implementation of this process using existing waste tanks avoids the building of a heavily shielded canyon building for salt processing with considerable savings in capital investment