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The nature of the volatile technetium species formed during vitrification of borosilicate glass

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Abstract

Vitrification of sodium pertechnetate into borosilicate glass was performed in air at 1100 °C. A glass with a composition similar to the one developed for vitrification of the low activity waste at the Hanford site was used. A red volatile species was observed above 600 °C. The extended X-ray absorption fine structure results indicate the environment of the absorbing Tc atom consists of 2.9(6) O atoms at 1.73(2) Å, 2.2(4) O atoms at 2.02(2) Å, and 0.8(2) O atoms at 2.18(2) Å. The results are consistent with the presence of a mononuclear species with a structure closely related to TcO3(OH)(H2O)2.

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Acknowledgments

Use of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The authors thank Trevor Low, and Julie Bertoia for outstanding health physics support and Dr. Sungsik Lee at the APS for support during XAS experiments.

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Correspondence to Bradley C. Childs.

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Childs, B.C., Poineau, F., Czerwinski, K.R. et al. The nature of the volatile technetium species formed during vitrification of borosilicate glass. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 306, 417–421 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4203-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4203-5

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