Investigation of groundwater organics, soil minerals, and activated carbon on the complexation, adsorption, and separation of technetium-99

摘要

This report summarizes studies on the interactions of technetium-99 (Tc) with different organic compounds and soil minerals under both oxidizing and reducing conditions. The report is divided into four parts and includes (1) effect of natural organic matter (NOM) on the complexation and solubility of Tc, (2) complexation between Tc and trichloroethylene (TCE) in aqueous solutions, (3) adsorption of Tc on soil samples from Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), and (4) adsorption and separation of Tc on activated carbon. Various experimental techniques were applied to characterize and identify Tc complexation with organic compounds and TCE, including liquid-liquid extraction, membrane filtration, size exclusion, and gel chromatography. Results indicate, within the experimental error, Tc (as pertechnetate, TcO(sub 4)) did not appear to form complexes with groundwater or natural organic matter under both atmospheric and reducing conditions. However, Tc can form complexes with certain organic compounds or specific functional groups such as salicylate. Tc did not appear to form complexes with TCE in aqueous solution.Both liquid-liquid extraction and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) gave no indication Tc was complexed with TCE. The correlations between Tc and TCE concentrations in monitoring wells at PGDP may be a coincidence because TCE was commonly used as a decontamination reagent. Once TCE and Tc entered the groundwater, they behaved similarly because both TcO(sub 4)(sup (minus)) and TCE are poorly adsorbed by soils. An effective remediation technique to remove TcO(sub 4)(sup (minus)) from PGDP contaminated groundwater is needed. One possibility is the use of an activated carbon adsorption technique developed in this study.