Preliminary investigation of a technique to separate fission noble metals from fission product mixtures
A variation of the gold-ore fire assay technique was examined as a method for recovering Pd, Rh and Ru from fission products. The mixture of fission product oxides is combined with glass-forming chemicals, a metal oxide such as PbO (scavenging agent), and a reducing agent such as charcoal. When this mixture is melted, a metal button is formed which extracts the noble metals. The remainder cools to form a glass for nuclear waste storage. Recovery depended only on reduction of the scavenger oxide to metal. When such reduction was achieved, no difference in noble metal recovery efficiency was found among the scavengers studied (PbO, SnO, CuO, Bi/sub 2/O/sub 3/, Sb/sub 2/O/sub 3/). Not all reducing agents studied, however, were able to reduce all scavenger oxides to metal. Only graphite would reduce SnO and CuO and allow noble metal recovery. The scavenger oxides Sb/sub 2/O/sub 3/, Bi/sub 2/O/sub 3/, and PbO, however, were reduced by all of the reducing agents tested. Similar noble metal recovery was found with each. Lead oxide was found to be the most promising of the potential scavengers. It was reduced by all of the reducing agents tested, and its higher density may facilitate the separation. Use of lead oxide also appeared to have no deterimental effect on the glass quality. Charcoal was identified as the preferred reducing agent. As long as a separable metal phase was formed in the melt, noble metal recovery was not dependent on the amount of reducing agent and scavenger oxide. High glass viscosities inhibited separation of the molten scavenger, while low viscosities allowed volatile loss of RuO/sub 4/. A viscosity of approx. 20 poise at the processing temperature offered a good compromise between scavenger separation and Ru recovery. Glasses in which PbO was used as the scavenging agent were homogeneous in appearance. Resistance to leaching was close to that of certain waste glasses reported in the literature. 12 figures. 7 tables.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 5112214
- Report Number(s):
- PNL-4116; ON: DE82020249
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
FISSION PRODUCTS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
PALLADIUM
PYROCHEMICAL REPROCESSING
RHODIUM
RUTHENIUM
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
GLASS
LEACHING
LEAD OXIDES
RECOVERY
REDUCING AGENTS
VISCOSITY
CHALCOGENIDES
DISSOLUTION
ELEMENTS
ISOTOPES
LEAD COMPOUNDS
MATERIALS
METALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLATINUM METALS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
REPROCESSING
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
050800* - Nuclear Fuels- Spent Fuels Reprocessing