Plutonium recovery from spent direct oxide reduction salts by chloride anion exchange

Technical Report · Fri Jul 17 04:00:00 EDT 1987

OSTI ID:5948328

Muscatello, A C; Fisher, D C; Kazanjian, A R; Navratil, J D; Stevens, J R

Chloride anion exchange has been investigated for recovery of plutonium from Direct Oxide Reduction (DOR) waste salts. Limited experimental results indicate that the conditions for <10/sup -3/ g/l losses of plutonium to effluents are feed adjustment to >8.5M total chloride, including 1.0M HC1 + 0.05M NaNO/sub 2/; a wash solution of 8M HC1 + 0.05M NaNO/sub 2/; elution with 0.5M HC1 and use of Amberlite IRA-938 for the anion exchange resin. These conditions result in >99% recovery of the plutonium. The eluate also contains approx.200 ppM calcium. Oxalic acid precipitation of Pu(III) recovers 99.2% if the molar ratio is 6:1 and the acidity is 0.8M. After calcination, the resulting plutonium oxide is suitable for DOR recycle if blended. Also, in the investigation, limited studies of extraction chromatography showed unacceptable plutonium losses to effluents.

• Research Organization: Rockwell International Corp., Golden, CO (USA). Rocky Flats Plant
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP03533
• OSTI ID: 5948328
• Report Number(s): RFP-3945; ON: DE88002475
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050800* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Spent Fuels Reprocessing
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
ACTINIDES
ANIONS
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
CHALCOGENIDES
CHARGED PARTICLES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHROMATOGRAPHY
DICARBOXYLIC ACIDS
ELEMENTS
EXTRACTION CHROMATOGRAPHY
ION EXCHANGE
IONS
MANAGEMENT
METALS
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXALIC ACID
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLUTONIUM
PRECIPITATION
PROCESSING
RECOVERY
REDUCTION
SALTS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING