Decontaminating and/or cleansing organic solid substrate with e.g. inorganic contaminants comprises contacting substrate with water-free extraction medium having e.g. carbon dioxide and/or giving mechanical treatment for substrate

摘要

#CMT# #/CMT# Decontaminating and/or cleansing an organic solid substrate with solid, radioactive, inorganic contaminants, comprises contacting the substrate with a water-free extraction medium and/or giving mechanical treatment for the substrate. The extraction has: dense carbon dioxide under pressure, a non-halogenated surfactant compound like block copolymers of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide); and a polydi(1-6C alkyl)siloxanes e.g. polydimethyl siloxane; and a complexing agent e.g. tributylphosphate, crown ethers, tributylphosphine oxide, triphenylphosphine oxide or tri-n-octylphosphine. #CMT# : #/CMT# Process of decontaminating and/or cleansing an organic solid substrate with solid, radioactive, inorganic contaminants, comprises contacting the substrate with an extraction medium free of water and/or giving mechanical treatment for the substrate. The extraction medium has: dense carbon dioxide under pressure; a non-halogenated surfactant compound like block copolymers of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) e.g. (EO) x-(PO) y diblock copolymers, (EO) x-(PO) y-(EO) x tri-block or (PO) x-(EO) y(EO) x; and a polydi(1-6C alkyl)siloxanes e.g. polydimethyl siloxane; and a complexing agent e.g. tributylphosphate, crown ethers, tributylphosphine oxide, triphenylphosphine oxide or tri-n-octylphosphine. EO : ethylene oxide; PO : propylene oxide; and x, y : 2-80 #CMT#USE : #/CMT# The process is useful to decontaminate and/or cleanse the organic solid substrate (e.g. synthetic/natural artificial tissue, polymer, plastic, resin, latex and/or rubber) with solid, radioactive, inorganic contaminants like polar compounds, preferably free metals or metalloids in radioactive isotope form e.g. iodine, tritium and tritiated organic compounds or its oxide-, salt- and organometallic derivative (where metals are transition-, actinide- and lanthanide metal e.g. silver, cesium, antimony, cobalt, manganese, neodymium, cerium, uranium, plutonium, americium, lanthanum, thorium or their oxides, or strontium) (claimed). #CMT#ADVANTAGE : #/CMT# The process uses the water-free extraction medium containing the non-halogenated surfactant and carbon dioxide that reduces production cost and makes simple, reliable and handy process. #CMT#INORGANIC CHEMISTRY : #/CMT# Preferred Components: The surfactant compound lowers the value of the interfacial tension of water/carbon dixide reference to 10 mNm -1>. The surfactant compound and the complexing agent are present individually at 0.001-1 wt.%. The extraction medium further comprises a cosolvent. The cosolvent is: 1-5 carbon aliphatic alcohols e.g. ethanol, methanol, propanol, isopropanol, butanol; ketone e.g. acetone; terpenes; cyclohexanes; hexane; and/or dimethylsulf oxide. The cosolvent is present at 0.001-10 wt.%. Preferred Components: Carbon dioxide is present in a liquid/supercritical state. #CMT#ORGANIC CHEMISTRY : #/CMT# Preferred Process: The process is carried out in a rotationally moving drum or perforated basket moving inside an enclosure containing carbon dioxide pressure of 50-700, preferably 100-150 bars at 15-200[deg]C, preference 40-60[deg]C. The process further comprises compression/decompression cycles at 10-100 bars for 10 seconds to 10 minutes; physicochemical separation using cyclone separators that separate contaminants by a vortex conjugated effect, the reduction of pressure and density of the fluid, by the filtration e.g. using a membrane in material sinters; recycling the fluid before compression/decompression cycles e.g. purifying gas by adsorption, liquefaction and/or (re)distillation; and contacting substrate with a high speed of the dense carbon dioxide fluid. The mechanical action is carried out by agitation, turbulence, a shearing, an electromechanical action and an ultrasonic action (preferred). #CMT#EXAMPLE : #/CMT# A test-tube was agitated with an extraction medium (containing carbon dioxide and (ethylene oxide) 3-(polypropylene oxide) 42-(ethylene oxide) 3 tri-block copolymer (100 mg) in ethanol (2 ml)) at 250[deg]C, 40 bar and 1500 rpm to give the cleansed test tube.