Inter polymer membrane in radioactive waste treatment by electrodialysis

Nuclear installations produce large quantity of aqueous radioactive effluents having specific activity less than 10-3 mCi/L. 137Cs is the major contaminant to be removed from the effluents before they are discharged to environment. This paper deals with the attempts made for decontaminating the aqueous waste using indigenously developed ion selective membranes. To impart ion selectivity di-sodium salt of phenol disulphonic acid for cation selectivity was introduced in polyurethane matrices. These membranes has stability under experimental conditions and were found to give good decontamination of radioactive effluent. A decontamination factor of 50 could be obtained using simulated effluents under laboratory conditions. (author). 3 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab