Remediation of activity from historical low level liquid waste

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel leads to the generation of various liquid waste categorized as high level, intermediate level and low level waste. Stringent specification based on ALARA (As low as reasonably achievable) has been followed for the discharge of this waste from reprocessing plants. Huge volume of historical waste consisting of waste evaporator condensate having activity slightly higher than the dischargeable limit has been lying in some of the underground tanks in Plutonium Plant Trombay. It has been decided to decontaminate this solution before it is discharged from the plant for further processing and disposal. Cation exchange resins are known to sorb metallic ions from low acid solutions. Tulsion T-42, a cation exchange resin supplied by Thermax limited has been tested for the treatment of this waste. Initially the solution was characterized by analyzing gross alpha, beta, gamma and individual fission products activities and total dissolved solids. Spectroscopic analysis was carried out using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) to determine other metallic impurities and the result is given