Nondestructive Radioactive Tracer Technique in Characterization of Anion Exchange Resins Purolite NRW-8000 and Duolite A-368

Radioactive tracer isotopes ¹³¹I and ⁸²Br were used to characterize anion exchange resins Purolite NRW-8000 and Duolite A-368 by application of nondestructive technique. The resin characterization was based on their performance during iodide and bromide ion-isotopic exchange reactions. It was observed that during the iodide ion-isotopic exchange reaction at a constant temperature of 40.0 °C, as the concentration of labeled iodide ion solution increases from 0.001 mol/L to 0.004 mol/L, the percentage of iodide ions exchanged increases from 62.10% to 68.10 % using Purolite NRW-8000 resins and from 44.20% to 46.80% using Duolite A-368 resins. Also at a constant temperature of 40.0 °C, 1.000 g of ion exchange resins and 0.003 mol/L labeled iodide ion solution, the values of specific reaction rate (min^-1), amount of iodide ion exchanged (mmol), initial rate of iodide ion exchange (mmol/min) and log K_d were calculated as 0.260, 0.500, 0.130 and 11.8 respectively for Purolite NRW-8000 resin, which was higher than the respective values of 0.130, 0.345, 0.045 and 6.7 as that obtained for Duolite A-368 resins. The similar trend was observed for the two resins during bromide ion-isotopic exchange reaction. From the overall results it appears that under identical experimental conditions, Purolite NRW-8000 resins show superior performance over Duolite A-368 resins. It is expected here that the present nondestructive technique can be extended further for characterization of different industrial grade ion exchange resins, which will help in their selection for specific industrial application.