Removal of Technetium (99Tc) from Aqueous Waste by Manganese Oxide Nanoparticles Loaded into Activated Carbon

Abstract

Technetium-99 is a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 2.13 × 105 year. 99Tc is a significant contaminant of concern to the world. For this reason, a detailed understanding of technetium chemistry is essential for the protecting the public and the environment especially after increasing the various applications and uses of isotopes in the medical practices. Therefore, treatment of waste increases prior to the safe discharge to the environment or the storage. The sorption of technetium in the form of pertechnetate on a nano manganese oxide loaded into activated carbon has been investigated. Nano manganese oxide (NMO) was synthesized from manganese chloride and potassium permanganate by co-precipitation and forming a new composite by loading a nanoparticle into a modified activated carbon by different ratios. Modifications of activated carbons using different concentrations of HNO3 (4 M, 6 M and 8 M) are used in prepared composites. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were used to characterize the prepared composites. The adsorption of anions from low level radioactive aqueous waste was examined using batch technique. Different parameters affecting on the adsorption process were studied for the removal of . The results revealed that NMO/AC (4 M, 6 M and 8 M) has a high adsorption efficiency (93.57%, 90.3% and 90.3%) respectively compared to NMO and AC which have a lower adsorption efficiency (41% and 38.9%) respectively. Moreover, the adsorption isotherm belonged to Freundlich model, the adsorption data followed pseudo-second order model and the thermodynamic study indicated that the adsorption of on Nano-composites was an exothermic and spontaneous process.