DECLADDING OF PWR BLANKET FUEL ELEMENTS WITH AQUEOUS AMMONIUM FLUORIDE SOLUTIONS

Technical Report · Wed Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1958

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/4301365· OSTI ID:4301365

Ferris, L. M.

A flowsheet is presented for decladding PWR blanket fuel elements with boillng 8 M NH/sub 4/F-1.0 M NH/sub 4/NO/sub 3/. After decladding, the pelleted UC/sub 2/ core is dissolved in 10 M HNC/sub 3/ to produce a solution suitable for recovery of uranium by solvent extraction. A 30-mil Zircaloy-2 jacket can be completely dissolved in about 2 hr with a uranium loss of less than 0.02%. The total uranium loss after decladding and core dissolution was less than 0.022%. All experiments were performed with unirradiateed fuel specimens. Ammnonium nitrate was added to the decladding solution to dissolve the tin in Zircaloy-2 and thus prevent excessively high uranium losses approximately -0.8%) to a nitric acid-insoluble residue comprised mainly of SnC/sub 2/. Another solvent for tin, cupric chloride, caused higher uranium losses (0.13%) to the dejacketing solution (auth)

• Research Organization: oak Ridge National Lab., Tenn.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• NSA Number: NSA-13-000067
• OSTI ID: 4301365
• Report Number(s): ORNL-2558
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ACIDITY
AMMONIUM COMPOUNDS
BLANKETS
BOILING
CHEMISTRY
COPPER CHLORIDES
FLUORIDES
FUEL CANS
FUEL ELEMENTS
LOSSES
MIXING
NITRATES
NITRIC ACID
PELLETS
PERFORMANCE
PWR
QUANTITY RATIO
RADIOACTIVITY
REACTOR CORE
RECOVERY
REPROCESSING
SOLUBILITY
SOLUTIONS
SOLVENT EXTRACTION
SOLVENTS
TIN OXIDES
URANIUM
URANIUM DIOXIDE
ZIRCALOY