Anion Exchange Separation of Trivalent Actinides and Lanthanides

A process for separating americium and curium from rare earths by anion exchange based on selective chloride complexing has been developed and tested on a laboratory scale. The separation is accomplished by sorption of americium, curium, and rare earths on Dowex 1–10X resin from a solution of 8 M LiNO₃ followed by selective elution of rare earths with 10 M LiCl and americium—curium elution with 1 M LiCl. Laboratory demonstration of this process has given greater than 99.5% recovery of americium tracer containing no detectable amounts of rare earths.