Extracting Tritium from Water Using a Protonic Manganese Oxide Spinel

Abstract

Extracting tritium of parts-per-trillion-levels from water at room temperature was provided using a protonic manganese oxide with a spinel crystal structure under weakly acidic conditions. Indeed, using 0.48 g of the protonic manganese oxide powder led to the removal of 1.75 × 10 5 Bq of tritium in 20 min at room temperature from a test water (100 mL) that contained a tritium concentration of 5.6 × 10 6 Bq/L (i.e., 15.6 ng/L). The extraction capability of tritium Downloaded by [Stockholm University Library] at 20:32 11 August 2015A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 2 significantly depended on the crystal structure of manganese oxides and the proton content in the spinel crystal structure.