You are here: Home :: Area NEM :: Chemistry :: Physical chemistry

P. Metilda, J. Mary Gladis, T. Prasada Rao

Catechol functionalized aminopropyl silica gel: synthesis, characterization and preconcentrative separation of uranium(VI) from thorium(IV)

A novel solid phase extractant is prepared by chemically immobilizing catechol with diazotized aminopropyl silica gel. The resulting catechol functionalized silica gel (CASG) was characterized by FTIR, and microanalysis and was used for selective enrichment of uranium(VI) from other inorganic ions. The optimum pH range for maximum sorption of uranium(VI) and thorium(IV) was found to be in the range 3.5–6.0. The above actinides were eluted with 10 cm³ of 1.0 mol dm^-3 HCl and determined by using an Arsenazo III spectrophotometric procedure. The calibration graph was rectilinear over the uranium(VI) concentration in the range 2–100 μg dm^-3 with a relative standard deviation of 2.15% (for 25 μg of uranium(VI) present in 1.0 dm³ of sample). The validation of the developed preconcentration procedure was carried out by analyzing marine sediment (MESS-3, NRC, Canada) and soil (IAEA soil-7, Austria) reference materials. The developed preconcentration method enables a simple instruments like a spectrophotometer gave comparable values of uranium(VI) to that of standard inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometric values during the analysis of real soil and sediment samples.

Radiochimica Acta, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag

Print ISSN: 0033-8230
Volume: 93, 04/2005
Pages: 219 - 224

Journal homepage (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area NEM