THE DOW ALUMINUM PYROMETALLURGICAL PROCESS. Annual Technical Progress Report Fiscal Year 1960

Technical Report · Fri Aug 19 04:00:00 EDT 1960

OSTI ID:4007204

Teitel, R J; Layne, G S

In the Dow Al Pyrometallurgical process U is dissolved in molten Al and precipitated as UAl/sub 3/ by the addition of Mg. The UAl/sub 3/ is dissociated by Mg or Zn treatments and metallic U recovered by heating the product in vacuo. Fission products or other impurities are separated from the U by taking advantage of their properties of volatility or insolubility in Al, or solubility in Al-Mg, Mg, or Zn. The basic steps of the DAP process were evaluated experimentally with respect to fission product and Pu separation, quantities of process metals required, U losses, container material requirements, general basic equipment, and processing techniques. From this information, a flow sheet of the process as it may be applied to an EBR II fast breeder reactor fuel cycle and as a "head-end" process for aqueous processing of U-Zr fuel elements was evaluated with favorable potentialities indicated. Detailed experimental data were obtained on experiments using from 1 to 100 grams of U. The results show that the separation of Ce (and therefore the rare earth flssion products), Ba, Sr, Y, Zr, Mo and Ru can be maintained at a reasonsbly low level in a uranium based equilibrium "fission" fuel. High recoveries of U from low U-Zr fuel elements were demonstrated. Pu can be recovered from Pu-Al melts by the addition of Mg. Very low concentrations of Pu can be coprecipitated (from these melts) with U. (auth)

• Research Organization: Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich.
• NSA Number: NSA-15-026115
• OSTI ID: 4007204
• Report Number(s): TID-11692
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ALUMINUM
ALUMINUM ALLOYS
BARIUM
BREEDING
BURNUP
CERIUM
CHEMISTRY
EBR-2
FAST NEUTRONS
FISSION PRODUCTS
FUEL CYCLE
FUEL ELEMENTS
HEATING
IMPURITIES
MAGNESIUM
MAGNESIUM ALLOYS
METALLURGY
MOLYBDENUM
PLUTONIUM
PRECIPITATION
RARE EARTHS
RECOVERY
REPROCESSING
RUTHENIUM
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SOLUBILITY
SOLUTIONS
STRONTIUM
URANIUM
URANIUM ALLOYS
VACUUM
YTTRIUM
ZINC
ZIRCONIUM ALLOYS