Removal of ¹⁷⁷Lu from radioactive wastewater using Montmorillonite clay

Because radioactive ¹⁷⁷Lu has a wide range of possible applications in radiopharmaceuticals, its removal from medical wastewater is particularly important. Montmorillonite clay was employed as an adsorbent in this study. Radioactive solutions were prepared with dilutions of the solution containing ¹⁷⁷Lu at various concentrations, in which it was present as Lu³⁺. ULEGe detector in gamma spectrometer was used to measure ¹⁷⁷Lu gamma rays emitted from the radioactive aqueous solutions. The results obtained showed that it is possible to remove ¹⁷⁷Lu with a high yield of approximately 90% and it is effective in a period of 90 min under acidic conditions. From the findings, it can be argued that Montmorillonite clay, as an abundant and sustainable adsorbent, may also be suitable for the disposal of different radioactive medical wastes such as ¹³¹I and ^99mTc, and also the technique based on gamma ray spectroscopy can be used for fast and practical measurements of radioactive material amounts.