Homogeneous hydrolysis of thorium by thermal decomposition of urea
-
Tadeas Wangle
,
Vaclav Tyrpekl
Abstract
Thorium was precipitated homogeneously from a thorium nitrate solution by the thermal decomposition products of urea. The kinetics of the hydrolysis were studied at 90 and 100°C by pH measurement during the initial 5 h and the precipitation efficiencies of thorium and radium were measured over a 24 h period. Precipitation of the radium daughters was closely followed with the aim of co-precipitation of radium with thorium. The CO2 formed during urea decomposition dissolved in the solution, forming CO32− during the experiment upon reaching a sufficiently high pH level (>7). This allowed radium to co-precipitate partially, thus reducing the activity of the filtrate. After filtration or centrifugation, the precipitate is composed of nanocrystalline thorium dioxide (crystallite size ~10 nm), with weakly bound H2O and CO2.
Acknowledgements
P. Dries, K. Vanaken, and G. Leinders provided technical assistance during the realization of experiments. This work was partially funded by Solvay under contract CO-90-15-3832-00.
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©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Development of a “fission-proxy” method for the measurement of 14-MeV neutron fission yields
- Investigations on the complete removal of iron(III) interference on the uranium(VI) extraction from sulfate leach liquor using Alamine 336 in kerosene
- Homogeneous hydrolysis of thorium by thermal decomposition of urea
- Solubilities and solubility products of thorium hydroxide under moderate temperature conditions
- Determination of uranium and thorium concentrations in thorium ore sample using artificial neural network and comparison with net area peak method
- Solvent extraction separation of zirconium and hafnium from nitric acid solutions using mixture of Cyanex-272 and TBP
- Development of granular radioactive reference source from 152,154Eu adsorbed on tin tungstate matrix
- Dosimetric characterization of novel polycarbonate/porphyrin film dosimeters for high dose dosimetry: study on complexation effect
- EPR measurement of environmental radiation using human fingernails
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Development of a “fission-proxy” method for the measurement of 14-MeV neutron fission yields
- Investigations on the complete removal of iron(III) interference on the uranium(VI) extraction from sulfate leach liquor using Alamine 336 in kerosene
- Homogeneous hydrolysis of thorium by thermal decomposition of urea
- Solubilities and solubility products of thorium hydroxide under moderate temperature conditions
- Determination of uranium and thorium concentrations in thorium ore sample using artificial neural network and comparison with net area peak method
- Solvent extraction separation of zirconium and hafnium from nitric acid solutions using mixture of Cyanex-272 and TBP
- Development of granular radioactive reference source from 152,154Eu adsorbed on tin tungstate matrix
- Dosimetric characterization of novel polycarbonate/porphyrin film dosimeters for high dose dosimetry: study on complexation effect
- EPR measurement of environmental radiation using human fingernails
