Recovery of plutonium traces from nitric acid-fluorhydric acid solutions by sorption onto alumina

Successful experiments for the retention of plutonium onto alumina from HNO3-HF solution gave enough confidence to recommend the proposed method to separate traces of plutonium from waste solutions in the presence of macroamounts of uranium (VI). Only macroamounts of thorium, uranium (IV) and rare earths are serious interfering ions, since they precipitate with HF. The behavior expected for neptunium in the same system should be similar to plutonium, thorium and rare earths. The retention of neptunium from HNO3-HF solutions is in progress. The sorption yield for Pu was around 95%. The sorption mechanism is not well established