Novel synthesis of bismuth-based adsorbents for the removal of 129I in off-gas

New adsorbents based on bismuth were investigated for the capture of iodine-129 (I-129) in off-gas produced from spent fuel reprocessing. Porous bulky materials were synthesized with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a sacrificial template. Our findings showed that the iodine trapping capacity of as-synthesized samples could reach 1.9-fold that of commercial silver-exchanged zeolite (AgX). The thermodynamic stability of the reaction products explains the high removal efficiency of iodine. We also found that the pore volume of each sample was closely related to the ratio of the reaction products. (C) 2014 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.