Batch experiments demonstrate minimal seawater cation interference on americium uptake by magnetite, suggesting efficient radioactive wastewater decontamination without excess adsorbent.
The stagnant water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (1F NPS) is thought to be under neutral pH conditions and containing alpha (α) nuclides and seawater components. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the influences of seawater components that may interfere with adsorption of α nuclides as competing ions under neutral pH conditions. In this study, the influences of coexisting cation components, sodium (Na), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) on the adsorption amounts of americium (Am) and europium (Eu) by magnetite (Fe3O4) was examined in batch tests. It was found that the influences of these components on Eu adsorption amounts by Fe3O4 decreased in the order of Ca > Mg ≈ Na, indicating that Ca is main competing component. After 7 days immersion under a liquid-solid ratio of 100 mL g–1, Eu adsorption amounts by Fe3O4 decreased only 10% when initial concentration of Eu was 1.0 × 10–3 Eq L–1 and concentration of Ca was increased 1000 times from 2.5 × 10–5 Eq L–1 to 2.5 × 10–2 Eq L–1. A similar test conducted using low concentrations of Am indicated that the Am adsorption amounts by Fe3O4 decreased only 7% when initial concentration of Am was 1.8 × 105 Bq L–1 and concentration of Ca was increased 100 times from 2.5 × 10–5 Eq L–1 to 2.5 × 10–3 Eq L–1. Therefore, we concluded that Am could be removed without having to significantly increase the amount of Fe3O4 even when there are coexisting seawater components.
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Tsutsumiguchi et al. (2026) studied this question.
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