Treatment of oxide spent fuel using the lithium reduction process

Conference · Wed May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:238464

Karell, E J; Pierce, R D; Mulcahey, T P ^[1]

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1. Argonne National lab., IL (United States). Chemical Technology Div.

The wide variety in the composition of DOE spent nuclear fuel complicates its long-term disposition because of the potential requirement to individually qualify each type of fuel for repository disposal. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has developed the electrometallurgical treatment technique to convert all of these spent fuel types into a single set of disposal forms, simplifying the qualification process. While metallic fuels can be directly processed using the electrometallurgical treatment technique, oxide fuels must first be reduced to the metallic form. The lithium reduction process accomplishes this pretreatment. In the lithium process the oxide components of the fuel are reduced using lithium at 650 C in the presence of molten LiCl, yielding the corresponding metals and Li{sub 2}O. The reduced metal components are then separated from the LiCl salt phase and become the feed material for electrometallurgical treatment. A demonstration test of the lithium reduction process was successfully conducted using a 10-kg batch of simulated oxide spent fuel and engineering-scale equipment specifically constructed for that purpose. This paper describes the lithium process, the equipment used in the demonstration test, and the results of the demonstration test.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 238464
• Report Number(s): ANL/CMT/CP--89562; CONF-9606116--12; ON: DE96009132
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
AMERICIUM OXIDES
BARIUM
CERIUM
CESIUM
EUROPIUM
FISSION PRODUCTS
LANTHANUM
LITHIUM CHLORIDES
MOLTEN SALTS
MOLYBDENUM
NEODYMIUM
NEPTUNIUM OXIDES
PLUTONIUM OXIDES
PRASEODYMIUM
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
REDUCTION
RHODIUM
RUTHENIUM
SAMARIUM
SPENT FUELS
STRONTIUM
URANIUM OXIDES
YTTRIUM
ZIRCONIUM