Plutonium Residue Recovery (PuRR) project quarterly progress report, April--June 1989
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
A material-balance flowsheet for ash-heel processing has been prepared. The major process features are (1) reduction of Pu into a calcium-zinc alloy and selective electrolytic recovery of the Pu from the alloy, (2) removal of americium as a waste, (3) concentration of nontransuranic tramp elements in a zinc waste, (4) removal of oxygen and recovery of calcium by electrolysis of CaO, and (5) zinc recycle by evaporation. Based on this idealized flowsheet, the mass of solid waste is only 62% of that of the original residue. This is accomplished by recycling virtually all the reagents and discarding the oxygen as CO and CO{sub 2}. The pyrochemical recovery of Pu from incinerator ash heel from the Rocky Flats Plant was investigated. During this period, zinc-calcium alloys were used to reduce the PuC{sub 2} in the ash. Reduction of ash heel has been attempted with zinc-calcium alloys containing 2, 6, and 10 wt% calcium after the reduction. These resulted in extractions of 95%, 97%, and 99.5%, respectively, of the Pu from the salt. Following exposure of the reduction alloy to a ZnCl{sub 2}-bearing salt, the Pu was removed effectively from the alloy; however, the Pu recovered in the salt did not complete the material balance. Experiments were made to test a calcium-zinc reference electrode against a Zn-Ca-Mg-Al liquid alloy. The results agreed well with calculated potentials, and such electrodes are promising for application to process monitoring. Calculations were made that verify that most of the americium in the molten salt is present in the divalent state when distributed between liquid Pu and NaCl-KCl. The AmCl{sub 2} activity coefficient is about 10 times that of PuCl{sub 3} in the salt mixture.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE/DP
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 5107276
- Report Number(s):
- UCID-21542-89-2; ON: DE90006162
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Plutonium Residue Recovery (PuRR) Project: Quarterly progress report, July-September 1988
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Related Subjects
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
PLUTONIUM
RECOVERY
PYROCHEMICAL REPROCESSING
OPTIMIZATION
ASHES
BORON NITRIDES
ELECTRODES
EXTRACTION
FLOWSHEETS
GRAPHITE
MATERIAL BALANCE
POTASSIUM CHLORIDES
PROGRESS REPORT
REDUCTION
RESIDUES
SODIUM CHLORIDES
STIRRING
ZINC CHLORIDES
ACTINIDES
ALKALI METAL COMPOUNDS
BORON COMPOUNDS
CARBON
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHLORIDES
CHLORINE COMPOUNDS
DIAGRAMS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTAL MINERALS
ELEMENTS
HALIDES
HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
METALS
MINERALS
NITRIDES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NONMETALS
PNICTIDES
POTASSIUM COMPOUNDS
REPROCESSING
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SODIUM COMPOUNDS
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
ZINC COMPOUNDS
ZINC HALIDES
052001* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Processing
050800 - Nuclear Fuels- Spent Fuels Reprocessing