Americium recovery and purification at Rocky Flats

Conference · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:6275236

Navratil, J. D.; Martella, L. L.; Thompson, G. H.

Americium processing at Rocky Flats Plant is described. The americium is recovered from plutonium metal by a pyrochemical process; the resulting molten salt extraction residues must be processed to recover americium. At present the process uses cation exchange with Dowex 50W-X8 resin, This work shows that a macroporous resin, BioRad AG MP-50, has 30 to 50% more capacity and better elution kinetics than Dowex 50W-X8. Two extraction methods, solvent extraction and extraction chromatography with an organophoshorus bidentate, are also described. Americium is effectively decontaminated from magnesium and aluminum, and recovered by these methods.

• Research Organization: Atomics International Div., Golden, CO (USA). Rocky Flats Plant
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-04-3533
• OSTI ID: 6275236
• Report Number(s): RFP-2886; CONF-790415-30; TRN: 79-011233
• Resource Relation: Conference: 177. ACS national meeting, Honolulu, HI, USA, 1 Apr 1979; Other Information: Portions of document are illegible
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
AMERICIUM
PURIFICATION
RECOVERY
CHROMATOGRAPHY
ION EXCHANGE
MOLTEN SALTS
ROCKY FLATS PLANT
SOLVENT EXTRACTION
ACTINIDES
ELEMENTS
EXTRACTION
METALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
SALTS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
TRANSPLUTONIUM ELEMENTS
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
US AEC
US DOE
US ERDA
US ORGANIZATIONS
050800* - Nuclear Fuels- Spent Fuels Reprocessing