A novel aluminum vanadate ion exchanger and its use for separation of 137mBa, 115mIn and 110mAg from 137Cs, 115Cd and 198Au, respectively

A newly designed inorganic ion exchanger, based on aluminum vanadate, has been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, spectroscopic tools and powdered X-ray diffraction. The insoluble poorly polycrystalline material is highly stable towards thermal and radiation doses and in various chemical environments. The data of exchange capacities of the solid material for the different alkali and alkaline metal ions determined by batch technique show that the compound can be employed as an ion exchanger. The successful radiochemical separations of the no carrier added daughter nuclides; 137mBa and 115mIn from their respective parents present in equilibrium mixtures have been carried out using this material. Elutions of 137mBa and 115mIn were performed using 0.0426 mol L−1 ascorbic acid solution and 4.0 mol L−1 HCl, respectively, after sorption of the equilibrated mixtures 137Cs–137mBa at 0.01 mol L−1 HCl medium and 115Cd–115mIn at pH 7.0, respectively. In another column operation, it has been observed that the separation of gold and silver is possible with the help of the eluents, 0.01% alcoholic solution of Rhodamine-B for gold and 0.5% thiourea solution in 0.1 mol L−1 HClO4 for silver, respectively, after the sorption of no carrier added onto this material at pH 2.0, at a no carrier added level.