Selective extraction of uranium from a mixture of metal or metal oxides by a tri-n-butylphosphate complex with HNO(3) and H(2)O in supercritical CO(2).

In order to study the decontamination nature of the reactive extraction of uranium in the presence of some metal chemicals using a single-phase mixture of HNO(3), H(2)O and tri-n-butylphosphate (TBP) in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO(2)), we measured the decontamination factors (DFs) of Sr, Zr, Mo, Ru, Pd, Ce and Nd from their mixture with U. These elements were originally added to U(3)O(8) as SrO, ZrO(2), MoO(3), RuO(2), Pd, CeO(2) and Nd(2)O(3), and the extraction was performed at 18 MPa and 323 K with the single-phase mixture. The DFs for these elements were determined to be greater than 10(3) when the molecular ratio of U to TBP in the extracted complex was greater than 0.3. Dilution by SC-CO(2) effectively increased the DFs.