Development of an Adsorbent for Cs Removal Synthesized by Radiation-Induced Graft Polymerization

Abstract

 One of the most important tasks for recovering living area contaminated by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station is to secure a safe water supply. Therefore, we developed a Cs adsorbent wherein ammonium 12-molybdophosphate (AMP) was loaded by radiation-induced graft polymerization on a fibrous trunk material and crosslinked to form a structure wherein the loaded AMP is stable. To optimize the synthesis of this Cs adsorbent, a 9G (G: dimethacrylate) polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate (PEGDM) was used as a crosslinking reagent and the adding volume was adjusted to 1mol% in a monomer solution to synthesize the Cs adsorbent with a 200% degree of grafting. Our evaluation of the adsorption performance of the Cs adsorbent indicates that it can be applied to a standard pH range for drinking water (from pH 5.8 to 8.6) and captures sufficient Cs, even in a solution containing 1mg/L of K, Ca, Mg, and Na ions, to yield a Cs concentration comparable to that of stream water.