Combustion/absorption process for the separation of ¹⁴C and ³H in radwastes released from nuclear power plants and...

Radioactivities of ³H and ¹⁴C in spent radioactive ion exchange resins and spent radioactive lubricant oils released from nuclear power plants, has been determined using a combustion and sorption method (combustion method). The liquid scintillation counting (LSC) spectra showed that the interference of other radionuclides has not significantly affected the determination of radioactivities of ³H and ¹⁴C in the radwaste samples. The chemical structure of ¹⁴CO₂, which originated from the combustion of radwastes, trapped ¹⁴C sorbent has been investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). FT-IR study showed interesting results that peaks for uncoupled CO₂ and carbonic amide appeared at FT-IR spectra of CO₂ high-absorbed ¹⁴C sorbents, while the peak for carbamate was only observed at the spectra of CO₂ low-absorbed sorbents. During the CO₂ sorption in ¹⁴C sorbent, temperature and viscosity of the sorbent increased owing to decrease of enthalpy and increase of apparent molecular weight of the sorbent caused by the bonding formation between sorbent molecules.