Separation of (134)Cs and (152)Eu using inorganic ion exchangers, zirconium vanadate and ceric vanadate

Two inorganic ion exchangers, zirconium vanadate and ceric vanadate were synthesized and applied to confine and separate (152)Eu and (134)Cs from a synthetic mixture. The percentages of adsorption of the two radionuclides were studied for the two ion exchangers at varying pH conditions. At pH 3, zirconium vanadate adsorbs both Eu and Cs and a column chromatographic separation was achieved using 0.1M EDTA as the eluant. The ceric vanadate ion exchanger showed an increased trend in adsorption for both the radionuclides with increase of pH value from 1 to 6. At pH 1, a column chromatographic separation of these radionuclides from a mixture was achieved, because at this pH only (134)Cs was adsorbed to ceric vanadate bed in the column.