Radio Analytical Nondestructive Technique in Performance Evaluation of Organic Base Ion Exchange Resins Purolite NRW-6000 and Duolite A-378

Nondestructive radioanalytical technique using short lived isotopes 131I and 82Br was used as tracers to study the kinetics of iodide and bromide ion-isotopic exchange reactions. The kinetic data so obtained was used to evaluate the performance of organic base anion exchange resins Purolite NRW-6000 and Duolite A-378. It was observed that for iodide ion-isotopic exchange reaction performed at 40.0 °C using 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 Kd were calculated as 0.332, 0.582, 0.193 and 16.2 respectively for Purolite NRW-6000 resin, which was higher than the respective values of 0.210, 0.421, 0.088 and 14.7 as that obtained for Duolite A-378 resins. Also 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 74.68 % to 79.48 % using Purolite NRW-6000 resins and from 52.30 % to 58.90 % using Duolite A-378 resins. The overall results indicate superior performance of Purolite NRW-6000 resins over Duolite A-378 resins under identical operational parameters. It is expected here that the present technique can be extended further for characterization of different ion exchange resins which will further help in the selection of those reins for the specific industrial application