Remarkable enhancement in radio-cesium uptake from acidic feeds into an extraction chromatography resin containing a calix[4]arene-mono-crown-6 ligand

•A novel extraction chromatography resin containing a calix[4]arene-mono-crown-6 has been prepared.•The resin was found to be far superior to the only similar resin reported before.•The extraction of radio-cesium could be done from 3 M HNO3 and the stripping of the loaded activity was done by water.•The resin has good radiation stability and recyclability for about 5 cycles of loading and stripping.•The resin hold great potential for application in actual acidic radioactive feeds. An extraction chromatography resin, prepared by the impregnation of bis-octyloxy-calix[4]arene-mono-crown-6 (BOCMC)onto an acrylic ester based polymeric support material, gave excellent uptake data for the removal of radio-cesium (Cs-137) from nitric acid feed solutions. The weight distribution coefficient (Kd) value of >300 obtained during the present study at 3 M HNO3 was the highest reported so far while using a calix-crown-6 based extraction chromatographic resin material. Analogous resin reported previously has yielded a Kd value