Research in Industrial Use of Ion Exchange and Simulation

Abstract

We investigated the industrial use of ion exchange technology as well as the modeling of fixed bed, multicomponent ion exchange processes. In this paper we report on both fields of this research. We have developed a complex technology for the selective separation of the long-live radionuclides and the partial recycling of boric acid from radioactive evaporator bottom residue. A wastewater treatment system has been developed by using a cesium-selective inorganic ion exchanger. The selective separation of 137Cs, 134Cs from high salt concentration and strongly alkaline evaporator bottom residue in Paks NPP has a volume reduction factor of about 3500–6500 at the value of the decontamination factor DF > 100, for the samples of four evaporator bottom residue tanks of the NPP. Some important classes of ion exchangers do possess uniform internal pore structures and bring all parts of the solíd structure into much closer contact with the liquid. Such materials are porous organic resins. For these types of exchangers, we have modified Mansour's multicomponent adsorption model and developed a computer program to describe multicomponent breakthrough, cocurrent, and counter-current elution curves for ion exchangers. In addition, we have developed a subroutine for the calculation of multicomponent ion exchange kinetics according to Nernst-Planck equation and successfully tested it. This subroutine will be added to the multicomponent ion exchange breakthrough and elution simulation program to have a real multicomponent ion exchange simulation program. In this paper we report about these research results too.