The Extraction of Silver and the Effect of Diluent, Ligand Side Group and Solvent Composition

Solvent extraction and the so called BTBP class of ligands can be used for the separation of the actinides from the rest of used nuclear fuel. One troublesome co-extracting element in this separation is silver.Therefore, two different BTBP molecules, having different side groups have been investigated. It was shown that the silver distribution ratio is higher using the CyMe4-BTBP than theC2 -BTBP ligand. In additional experiments, it was shown that no water soluble silver complex is formed in the CyMe4 system and that the complex is one ligand/metal. No effect of varying the diluent/solvent was proven.