Nickel-potassium ferrocyanide (along with other ferrocyanide sub-products, as shown by mineralization, SEM-EDX analyses) has been immobilized in highly porous discs of chitin for the sorption of Cs(I) from near neutral solutions.
The immobilization process allows synthesizing stable materials that can bind up to 80 mg Cs g−1 (i.e., 240 mg Cs g−1 ion-exchanger). The pseudo-second order rate equation fits well kinetic profiles: the rate coefficient increases with the flow rate of recirculation (to force the access to potentially non-interconnected pores), as an evidence of the control of uptake kinetics by diffusion properties. Preliminary tests performed on 137Cs spiked solutions confirm the efficiency of the material for the treatment of effluents bearing radionuclides.
