A study of the wet chemical oxidation and solidification of radioactive spent ion exchange resins

This paper describes the research works on the decomposition of Ion-Exchange Resins (IERs) in H2O2-Fe2+/Cu2+ catalysis systems for volume reduction and improvement of immobilization in cement. The resins used in the study were polystyrene strong acidic and basic resins containing about 45% of water. The radioactive spent resins loading 60Co, 137Cs, 134Cs, 90Sr and 51Cr with a radioactive activity level of 4GBq/m3 were obtained from a reactor installation. It has been found in batch scale experiment that many factors has influence on the decomposition of IERs, and the most important ones are H2O2 dosage, H2O2 dose rate, temperature and pH value. The best temperature range is 97-99 deg. C. The pH-value of resin slurry chosen in this study is 2.0-3.0. The appropriate dosage of H2O2(30% vol.) is 200 ml/25 g wet mixed resins. The decomposition ratio is 100% and more than 90% for cation and anion IERs respectively, while it is 85% for mixed resins (as TOC-value). The analytical results indicates that the radioactive nuclides loaded in the spent resins are concentrated in decomposition solution and solid residues. No radioactivity enters into the off-gas, while the condensate from the reaction system has a radioactive activity of 1.65 Bq/l. Foaming is a problem associated with resin dissolution. Addition of a little amount of anti-foam agent can solve this problem very well. Three cementation materials have been chosen for encapsulation of decomposition residue. All of the tree kind of solidification materials can produce qualified cemented products with excellent properties for long term storage. The adopted volume reduction (VR) process can significantly reduce waste volume of solidified product decreases by 40% compared with that of original spent resin. (author). 4 refs, 2 figs, 2 tabs