Al–O–F materials as novel adsorbents for gaseous radioiodine capture

Re-processing used nuclear fuel requires a method to effectively capture and dispose of gaseous radioiodine. Previous work has shown that nanoporous Al-O materials are effective at capturing gaseous iodine; molecular dynamics simulations have shown that the addition of fluoride to the Al-O surface should increase the amount of iodine capture. Twelve different materials with different ratios of F:Al were created. These materials were chemically characterized and functionally characterized with respect to gaseous iodine uptake. The addition of fluoride does in fact lead to a substantial (10-100×) increase in iodine uptake per unit surface area. However, the amount of uptake does not appear to be directly related to the total fluoride content of the solid phase material.