Fenton-like treatment for reduction of simulated carbon-14 spent resin

M. Aamir Hafeez, Junsung Jeon, Seokju Hong, Neil Hyatt, Jong Heo and Wooyong Um

Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2020.104740

Received 5 August 2020; Received in revised form 1 November 2020; Accepted 2 November 2020

Available online 7 November 2020

2213-3437/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Spent resins with 14C are enlisted among the most problematic radioactive wastes. In current study, we successfully prepared the simulated 14C-loaded spent resins using HCO3 − , and for the first time the Fenton-like treatment of simulated 14C-loaded spent resins were compared with fresh Amberlite IRN-150 resin (without simulated 14C loading) by optimizing the influential reaction parameters. The experimental results revealed that 91.26 % weight loss and 85.47 % in TOC removal were achieved for fresh Amberlite IRN-150 resin (without simulated 14C loading) using 0.35 M Cu(II) catalyst, 30 % H2O2 as oxidant at pH 2, and 90 ± 3 ◦C temperature for 4 h reaction time. However, the simulated 14C-loaded spent resin using HCO3 − exhibited 87.34 % weight loss under the similar reaction conditions. The reduction in weight loss (%) of simulated 14C-loaded spent resin was attributed to the presence of HCO3 − on the resins, which could produce the carbonate radical (CO3 -∙ ) of lower oxidation capability as compared to hydroxyl radical and in turn affect the efficacy of Fenton-like treatment for simulated 14C-loaded spent resin. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analyses were used to characterize and the results also supported the resin’s degradation.