Systematic screening of various symmetric trialkyl phosphates has led to the conclusion that tris(2-methylbutyl) phosphate (T2MBP), an organophosphate having branched amyl groups, can also be adopted as an alternate extractant to tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) for the selective extraction of U(VI) and Pu(IV) during the nuclear fuel reprocessing. In this context, a detailed study on the extraction efficiency of 1.1 M T2MBP/n-dodecane for the extraction of two important nuclear fuel elements, U(VI) and Pu(IV) has been carried out. The cross-current extraction study with U(VI), Pu(IV), and mixed U(VI)–Pu(IV) feed solutions has also been carried out to investigate the extraction and stripping behaviour of the respective metal ions by T2MBP. Results indicated that in contrast to TBP-based systems, there was no occurrence of third-phase formation during the extraction of tetravalent plutonium by T2MBP up to its threshold limit. In addition, its extraction behaviour with certain important fission product elements was also taken up as a part of the study. It has been observed that the extraction of trivalent lanthanides (La, Ce, Nd, Gd), Zr and Tc using T2MBP is marginally lower than is seen for TBP, indicating the possibility of achieving better decontamination factor during reprocessing.

各个对称磷酸三烷基酯的系统的筛选已经导致这样的结论：三（2-甲基丁基）酯（T2MBP），具有支化戊基有机磷酸酯，也可以作为备用萃取到三-通过Ñ丁基磷酸酯（TBP），用于在核燃料后处理中选择性提取U（VI）和Pu（IV）。在此背景下，详细研究了1.1 M T2MBP / n的提取效率进行了十二烷的萃取，以提取两种重要的核燃料元素U（VI）和Pu（IV）。还进行了使用U（VI），Pu（IV）和混合的U（VI）-Pu（IV）进料溶液的错流萃取研究，以研究T2MBP对相应金属离子的萃取和汽提行为。结果表明，与基于TBP的系统相比，在用T2MBP提取四价threshold至其阈值极限时，没有出现第三相的形成。此外，它的提取行为与某些重要的裂变产物元素也被作为研究的一部分。业已发现，使用T2MBP提取三价镧系元素（La，Ce，Nd，Gd），Zr和Tc的程度略低于TBP，