Uranium-233 purification and conversion to stabilized ceramic grade urania for LWBR fuel fabrication (LWBR Development Program)

Technical Report · Wed Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1980

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6710867· OSTI ID:6710867

Lloyd, R.

High purity ceramic grade urania (/sup 233/UO/sub 2/) used in manufacturing the fuel for the Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) core was made from uranium-233 that was obtained by irradiating thoria under special conditions to result in not more than 10 ppM of uranium-232 in the recovered uranium-233 product. A developmental study established the operating parameters of the conversion process for transforming the uranium-233 into urania powder with the appropriate chemical and physical attributes for use in fabricating the LWBR core fuel. This developmental study included the following: (a) design of an ion exchange purification process for removing the gamma-emitting alpha-decay daughters of uranium-232, to reduce the gamma-radiation field of the uranium-233 during LWBR fuel manufacture; (b) definition of the parameters for precipitating the uranium-233 as ammonium uranate (ADU) and for reducing the ADU with hydrogen to yield a urania conversion product of the proper particle size, surface area and sinterability for use in manufacturing the LWBR fuel; (c) establishment of parameters and design of equipment for stabilizing the urania conversion product to prevent it from undergoing excessive oxidation on exposure to the air during LWBR fuel manufacturing operations; and (d) development of a procedure and a facility to reprocess the unirradiated thoria-urania fuel scrap from the LWBR core manufacturing operations to recover the uranium-233 and convert it into high purity ceramic grade urania for LWBR core fabrication.

• Research Organization: Bettis Atomic Power Lab., West Mifflin, PA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC11-76PN00014
• OSTI ID: 6710867
• Report Number(s): WAPD-TM-1422
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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