DEVELOPING AND TESTING AN ALKALINE-SIDE SOLVENT EXTRACTION PROCESS FOR TECHNETIUM SEPARATION FROM TANK WASTE

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Abstract
Engineering development and testing of the SRTALK solvent extraction process are discussed in this paper. This process provides a way to carry out alkaline-side removal and recovery of technetium in the form of pertechnetate anion from nuclear waste tanks within the DOE complex. The SRTALK extractant consists of a crown ether, bis-4,4′(5′)[(tert-butyl)cyclohexano]-18-crown-6, in a modifier, tributyl phosphate, and a diluent, Isopar®L. The SRTALK flowsheet given here separates technetium from the waste and concentrates it by a factor of ten to minimize the load on the downstream evaporator for the technetium effluent. In this work; we initially generated and correlated the technetium extraction data, measured the dispersion number for various processing conditions, and determined hydraulic performance in a single-stage 2-cm centrifugal contactor. Then we used extraction-factor analysis, single-stage contactor tests, and stage-to-stage process calculations to develop a SRTALK flowsheet. Key features of the flowsheet are (1) a low organic-to-aqueous (O/A) flow ratio in the extraction section and a high O/A flow ratio in the strip section to concentrate the technetium and (2) the use of a scrub section to reduce the salt load in the concentrated technetium effluent. Finally, the SRTALK process was evaluated in a multistage test using a synthetic tank waste. This test was very successful. Initial batch tests with actual waste from the Hanford nuclear waste tanks show the same technetium extractability as determined with the synthetic waste feed. Therefore, technetium removal from actual tank wastes should also work well using the SRTALK process.

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