Organic analyses of highly radioactive solutions requiring pretreatment byCs-137 removal

The beta-emitting radionuclide Cs-137 is precipitated from the Savannah Riv er Site (SRS) high-level waste by adding sodium tetraphenylborate (TPB). Th e concentrated and washed precipitate slurry containing CsTPB is transferre d to Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) Salt Processing Cell and hydr olyzed to yield an aqueous product (PHA) free of benzene. The PHA is highly radioactive (1E+11 dpm) and contains some water-soluble organic compounds that need to be analyzed for process control and process history. High perf ormance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods were developed to analyze thes e compounds with instruments contained in unshielded fume hoods. Removing 1 37CS from pHA in a shielded cell prior to HPLC analyses is essential to min imize personnel radiation exposure. In this study ammonium molybdophosphate (Bio-Rad AMP-1) was used for removing Cs-137 in PHA (PH 3.8). With a two-s tep application of AMP slurry, a decontamination factor of 1E+4 was achieve d for Cs removal. Two separate HPLC methods were used to analyze four polar organic compounds. The recovery of all the organic compounds were above 85 %.