Electrorefining of irradiated experimental metallic fuel at high lanthanides concentration in the LiCl-KCl electrolyte

JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS

卷:526

Article

Soucek, P.¹  Uruga, K.²  Murakami, T.²  Rodrigues, A.¹  Van Winckel, S.¹  Iizuka, M.²  Glatz, J-P¹ 

[1] Joint Res Ctr JRC Karlsruhe, European Commiss, Postfach 2340, D-76125 Karlsruhe, Germany

[2] CRIEPI, Komae, Tokyo 2018511, Japan

关键词: Pyrochemical separation process;    Electrorefining;    Metallic nuclear fuel;    Homogeneous recovery of actinides;    Reactive aluminium electrode;    Solid inert electrode;    Molten LiCl-KCl salt;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jnucmat.2019.151743

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

An electrorefining process for homogeneous group-selective recovery of actinides from metallic nuclear fuel in molten LiCl-KCl has been investigated. The present study follows up on the previously achieved results on recovery of actinides from both non-irradiated and irradiated test metallic fuels. In the current work, METAPHIX-2 fuel initially composed of U-71-Pu-19-Zr-10 alloy irradiated to similar to 7 at.% was processed. The experiments were focused on evaluation of selectivity of actinides over lanthanides during the electrorefining process in an electrolyte containing different concentrations of dissolved lanthanides up to 6.5 wt%, simulating the later and final stages of the process. In addition, a comparison of use of the solid reactive aluminium and solid inert cathodes for homogeneous recovery of all actinides was studied, as well as the effect of zirconium co-dissolution from the fuel on the process efficiency and on the structure of the deposits. The reactive aluminium electrode was proven suitable for homogeneous recovery of all actinides, while at the given conditions only uranium could be deposited on the inert cathodes. Very high group-selectivity of the process for actinides was demonstrated, even at high concentration of lanthanides in the electrolyte. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

【 授权许可】

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