h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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I was surprised to read that lanthanide metals can be
separated at very high purity using EDTA chromatography
[link].
"EDTA causes the lanthanides to migrate down the
column of resin while separating into bands of pure
lanthanides. The lanthanides elute in order of decreasing
atomic number"
If
it works for lanthanides, wouldn't it also work for
actinides?
Perhaps these could be separated by atomic number for
reprocessing of spent fuel, producing high-purity
actinides for medical/scientific use, rather than just
sending it all to waste (as with PUREX raffinate).
Reduced nuclear waste, and possibly some useful
products.
EDTA
...can be used to separate Lanthanides
Under “Uses”, but there’s no citation link [Frankx, Oct 30 2019]
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It does work, but it's expensive and the products aren't commercially useful. For the small amounts wanted, carrier precipitation works sufficiently well. |
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The usual disposal route for actinides involves precipitation/flocculation, press filtration, and then either glassification & burial in a geologic depository (officially) or packing into rusty second-hand oil drums and quietly shipping to far away hot countries where it's given away free to uneducated, poor dark-skinned people for use as house-building material (unofficially, but much cheaper and therefore much more common) |
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[+] though I'd like to see the link, promised. |
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Link provided. [8th], I think some of the products
might be useful. Americium his potential
industrial, compact reactor and military
applications. And removing any radionuclides for
other uses (and acknowledging that this wouldn’t
discriminate between isotopes) would reduce the
net activity of wastes, which is probably
(acknowledging the “intrinsic security” in wastes
being dangerous) overall a good thing. |
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// reduce the net activity of wastes // |
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No, because you've still got a load of hot stuff you don't want, but in a pure form. |
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If these nuclides were of any commercial value they would already be extracted and sold to offset the costs. |
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A lump of glass that contains a grab-bag of assorted rubbish, but not enough of any one thing to be useful, is much less of a threat from a security point of view. |
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//No, because you’ve still got a load of hot stuff// |
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But if you can extract some of the useful
radionuclides from the waste stream, the cost of
disposing the remaining waste can be much
reduced. Interesting to note that Dounreay PFR
raffinate was accepted to be downgraded to
Intermediate Level Waste because of it’s low
reactivity. So cement encapsulation: vitrification
plant not required. |
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// PFR raffinate was accepted to be downgraded to Intermediate Level Waste // |
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Yes, but only because they shoved a huge amount of seriously nasty crap down that bloody borehole, until it blew back over everything ... |
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Ha! Yes, that was a problem. But as you know, that
has no bearing on the reprocessing or activity of
the spent fuel waste. |
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I don't give a stuff about the idea in general, but
you've inspired a very promising series of thoughts.
We have a lot of problems with calcium
contamination in permeabilized cell/mitochondrial
preps, an EGTA gel might be a clever little solution. |
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// Link provided // not so much ; click and see. |
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I've worked with chromotography (which just means "spectrum", obviously) equipment, and was wondering what differentiated EDTA from others. |
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It's a fair bet that - if the hidden environmental costs of mining are recognized - reclaiming options would be considered cheaper. |
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// Yes, that was a problem. // |
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Oh, we adore the gorgeous way you skilfully elided that into the past tense ... have you ever considered working in PR for the nuclear industry ? |
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Or maybe the aviation industry ... "Yes, the 737MAX falling out of the sky was a problem ... yes, the tailfin breaking off the Airbus was a problem ..." |
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