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Description
Radioactive waste contains large amounts of hazardous radionuclides. Among them, long lived radionuclides of 137Cs (half-life-time of 30 years) and 90Sr (half-life-time of 28 years) are considered as the most dangerous to human health and environment. The ion exchange technology is one of the most commonly used methods for safe treatment of radionuclide waste.
In the presented work, new composite nanomaterial (TSMW) based on sawdust (wood dust) and titania, has been prepared and tested for sorption of 134Cs and 85Sr from aqueous solutions. The morphology and structure of TSMW were characterized by XRD, BET and SEM techniques.
The batch sorption experiments were used for evaluation of composite nanomaterial retention properties. The sorption of radionuclides onto TSMW sorbent was found to be pH dependent with the uptake increasing with pH. The efficient removal (more than 99%) of Sr(II) was achieved from neutral and base solutions. In case of Cs(I), the uptake was less efficient (70%). The evaluation of equilibrium sorption data for all studied ions indicated that the sorption processes onto TSMW sorbent agreed better with Langmuir isotherm model suggested that sorptions are monolayer.
Acknowledgements: This work was partially supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (project TH02020110).
