Separation and purification of americium from analytical waste solutions

This paper describes the development of a separation method for americium from the effluents emanating from anion exchange column, used for the recovery of plutonium from analytical waste solutions. The waste contained uranium, sodium, calcium and iron as the major impurities as estimated by ICP-AES method. ~99% pure americium was obtained by three separation steps using solvent extraction and extraction chromatography techniques. In the first step, uranium was quantitatively separated by giving five contacts of equal volumes of 30% TBP in n-dodecane. Fe and Na were separated in the next step using 0.1 M TODGA + 0.5 M DHOA as the extractant. In the last step, Am was separated from the co-extracted Ca (about 76%) using CMPO loaded extraction chromatographic column. The overall recovery was >80% with decontamination factor (D.F.) from the impurities being >3000 while the purity of the product was 99%.