A method for monitoring deposition at a solid cathode in an electro-refiner for a two-species system using electrode potentials
- Department of Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University, Box 7909 Raleigh, NC 27695 (United States)
- Center for Advanced Energy Studies, Idaho National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415 (United States)
- Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)
Currently, process monitoring of spent nuclear fuel electrorefining relies upon sampling and destructive analysis methods coupled with extrapolated thermodynamic process models for non-interrupted operations. An 'inverse' model was developed to predict the product deposition rates on a cathode using the cell current, cathode potential, and fundamental relations of electrochemistry. The model was applied to the following cases: pure uranium deposition, co-deposition of uranium and plutonium, and co-deposition of uranium and zirconium. The deposition rates predicted by this 'inverse' model were compared to those of a 'forward' model, ERAD. On average, the predicted deposition rates had relative errors of 3.88 % and 2.84 % for U and Pu, respectively, in the case of U/Pu co-deposition and 4.16 % and 7.44 % for U and Zr, respectively, in the case of U/Zr co-deposition. Thus, the 'inverse' model was able to predict the deposition rates without requiring information regarding the feed and salt composition, as the forward model, ERAD, does.
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22264209
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads, Salt Lake City, UT (United States), 29 Sep - 3 Oct 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 17 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads| 1633 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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