Radiotracer Technique in Study of Strongly Basic Anion Exchange Resins Dowex-SBR LC and Indion-454

The present paper demonstrates application of isotopic tracer technique in characterization of anion exchange resins Dowex-SBR LC and Indion-454 for which 131I and 82Br radio isotopes were used. The characterization was made based on iodide and bromide ion-isotopic exchange reaction kinetic data obtained for the two resins. It was observed that during iodide ion-isotopic exchange reaction performed at 35.0 °C, 1.000 g of ion exchange resins and 0.002 mol/L labeled iodide ion solution, the values of specific reaction rate (min-1), amount of ion exchanged (mmol), initial rate of ion exchange (mmol/min) and log Kd were 0.379, 0.426, 0.161 and 16.2 respectively for Dowex-SBR LC resin, which was higher than the respective values of 0.156, 0.243, 0.038 and 13.4 as that obtained by using Indion-454 resins. The identical trend was observed for the two resins during bromide ion-isotopic exchange reaction. The results of present investigation also indicate that during the two ion-isotopic exchange reactions, for both the resins, there exists a strong positive linear correlation between amount of ions exchanged and concentration of ionic solution; and strong negative correlation between amount of ions exchanged and temperature of exchanging medium. Based on overall results it appears that under identical experimental conditions, as compared to Indion-454 resins, Dowex-SBR LC resins show superior performance. 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.