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Removal of uranium from steel surface by polyvinyl alcohol foaming gel

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Abstract

In this work, a foam gel material based on polyvinyl alcohol were successfully prepared to remove uranium contamination on the surface of stainless steel. The material was tested through infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The decontamination process of the foam gel on stainless steel surface was analyzed by SEM/EDS and XPS. The results show that the foam gel has good stripping properties, and its decontamination factor for removal of radioactive uranium on stainless steel surfaces could reach 90.9, which seems better than the methods of water washing and wiping.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian, Beijing, China

    Hongjie Zhao, Zhanguo Li, Jian Li, Hua Zhao & Shanqiang Wang

  2. Institute of Defence Engineering, AMS, PLA, Luoyang, China

    Kun Zhang

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  1. Hongjie Zhao
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  4. Jian Li
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  5. Hua Zhao
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Contributions

HZ, experimental, writing; ZL, experimental guidance; SW, framework construction of the paper; KZ Data helped with data analysis; HZ and JL translated the article. YZ provided language assistance and YW provided proofreading assistance. Two corresponding authors have the same contribution.

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Correspondence to Zhanguo Li or Shanqiang Wang.

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Zhao, H., Li, Z., Zhang, K. et al. Removal of uranium from steel surface by polyvinyl alcohol foaming gel. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 3697–3710 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-09055-4

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