Solvent extraction of radiostrontium into ionic liquids using crown ethers

Chemical decontamination of nuclear facilities generates large volumes of low-level radioactive waste. Following worldwide efforts to reduce spent chemical reagents and radioactive waste volumes, new methods of regeneration and reuse of spent decontamination solutions are studied. This work focuses on the usage of ionic liquids (ILs) as an organic phase in solvent extraction of strontium from solutions containing complexing agents. Extractions from HNO3 solutions into [C4mim][NTf2] using various crown-ethers as the extraction agents were performed. Influence of the concentration of nitric or hydrochloric acid and the concentration of various interfering cations were tested throughout the study.