SMALL-SCALE DEMONSTRATION OF THE MELT REFINING OF HIGHLY IRRADIATED URANIUM- FISSIUM ALLOY

Technical Report · Thu Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1963

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/4701665· OSTI ID:4701665

Trice, Jr., V. G.; Steunenberg, R. K.

Five melt refining demonstration experiments were conducted with highly irradiated EBR-II prototype fuel to verify earlier data on fission product removals obtained with unirradiated and lower-activity alloys. In each experiment, approximately 0.4 kg of uranium-fissium fuel pins irradiated to burnups ranging from 0.22 to 1.75 total atom percent was melt refined for 1 or 3 hr at 1400 C in a limestabilized zirconia crucible. The behavior of fission products was consistent with the earlier results. Fission product removals were over 99 per cent for krypton, xenon, iodine, cesium, barium, and strontium, over 95 percent for yttrium, rare earths, and tellurium, and zero for the noble metals. Because of the small scale of the experiments and necessary exposure of the irradiated fuel to air in the cave facility, it was not possible to obtain definitive data on product yields. Swelling of the fuel pins and the associated release of fission product gases during the heating cycle caused no difficulty in the melt refining process on this scale. (auth)

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., Ill.
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• NSA Number: NSA-17-040920
• OSTI ID: 4701665
• Report Number(s): ANL-6696
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

AIR
BARIUM
BURNUP
CESIUM
CHEMISTRY
CRUCIBLES
DECONTAMINATION
DEFORMATION
FISSION PRODUCTS
FUEL ELEMENTS
HEATING
IODINE
IRIDIUM
KRYPTON
MELTING
OSMIUM
PALLADIUM
PLATINUM
RARE EARTHS
REFINING
REPROCESSING
RHODIUM
RUTHENIUM
SEPARATION PROCESSES
STRONTIUM
TELLURIUM
URANIUM ALLOYS
XENON
YTTRIUM
ZIRCONIUM OXIDES