Polymers for Reprocessing Radioactive Wastes

ALVARADO, AGUSTIN; MIRIAM MARTINS ALHO; VALERIA POZZOLI; BRUTTOMESSO, ANDREA; JAVIER EIRAS

Conferencia; 2nd Latin American Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (LA.SDEWES2020); 2020

In this work, we synthesized a copolymer frommethyl methacrylate (MMA) and a new monomer derived from neocuproine, the5-acrylamido-2,9-dimethyl-1,10-Phenanthroline (5ADMP), in order to be testedfor nuclear waste reprocessing. The incorporation of 5ADMP to the copolymer wasconfirmed by 1H-NMR, which also allowed us to estimate its molarcomposition. The poly(MMA-co-5ADMP) was characterized, thermally andspectroscopically, and we found that the weight percentage of5ADMP in the copolymer was about 18 % (12.5 to 1 in molar relationship). According to the literature, rareearths complexes with phenanthroline in a 1:3 relatioship[1], therefore, takinginto account the approximate polymer composition, the maximum rare earth uptakemust be 30 to 36 mg/g of polymer. Even thought an interaction was verified, theexperimental cation uptakes were far below this limit; this could be attributedto the lack of flexibility of ligands attached to polymer backbone.