Nondestructive Technique in Study of Purolite NRW-5010 and Duolite A-638 Anion Exchange Resins

Abstract

The present paper is one of the interesting applications of radioactive isotopes in nondestructive technique for performance evaluation of anion exchange resins Purolite NRW-5010 and Duolite A-638. The radioactive isotopes 131I and 82Br were used to trace the kinetics of ion-isotopic exchange reactions taking place between the resin surface and external ionic solution. It was observed that for bromide ion-isotopic exchange reaction at 35.0°C, when the concentration of bromide ions in solution increases from 0.001 to 0.004 mol/L, the value of specific reaction rate increases from 0.194 to 0.231 min−1 for Purolite NRW-5010 resin; and from 0.090 to 0.121 min−1 for Duolite A-638 resin. However, when the concentration of bromide ions in solution is kept constant at 0.002 mol/L and temperature is raised from 30.0 to 45.0 °C, the specific reaction rate value decreases from 0.215 to 0.186 min−1 for Purolite NRW-5010 resin and from 0.110 to 0.086 min−1 for Duolite A-638 resin. The identical trend was observed for the two resins during iodide ion-isotopic exchange reaction. From the results, it appears that Purolite NRW-5010 resin shows superior performance as compared to Duolite A-638 resin under similar experimental conditions. It is expected here that the same technique can be extended further for characterization of different ion exchange resins so as to bring about their efficient industrial applications.

Keywords:  Nondestructive technique, radioactive tracer isotopes, 131I, 82Br, reaction kinetics, characterization, isotopic exchange reactions, Duolite A-638, Purolite NRW-5010, ion exchange resins