Spherical Resorcinol-Formaldehyde Synthesis by Inverse Suspension Polymerization

Base catalyzed sol-gel polycondensation of resorcinol (1,3-dihydroxybenzene) with formaldehyde by inverse suspension polymerization leads to the formation of uniform, highly cross-linked, translucent, spherical gels, which have increased selectivity and capacity for cesium ion removal from high alkaline solutions. Because of its high selectivity for cesium ion, resorcinol-formaldehyde (R-F) resins are being considered for process scale column radioactive cesium removal by ion-exchange at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which is now under construction at the Hanford site. Other specialty resins such as Superlig(regsign) 644 have been ground and sieved and column tested for process scale radioactive cesium removal but show high pressure drops across the resin bed during transition from column regeneration to loading and elution. Furthermore, van Deemter considerations indicate better displacement column chromatography by the use of spherical particle beads rather than irregularly shaped ground or granular particles. In our studies batch contact equilibrium experiments using a high alkaline simulant show a definite increase in cesium loading onto spherical R-F resin. Distribution coefficient (Kd) values ranged from 777 to 429 mL/g in the presence of 0.1M and 0.7M potassium ions, respectively. Though other techniques for making R-F resins have been employed, to our knowledge no one has made spherical R-F resins by inverse suspension polymerization. Moreover, in this study we discuss the data comparisons to known algebraic isotherms used to evaluate ion-exchange resins for WTP plant scale cesium removal operations