Purification of aqueous plutonium chloride solutions via precipitation and washing.

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1594652· OSTI ID:976555

Stroud, M A ^[1]; Salazar, R R ^[2]; Abney, Kent David; Bluhm, E A ^[3]; Danis, J A ^[4]

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1. Mary Ann
2. Richard R.
3. Elizabeth A.
4. Janet A.

Pyrochemical operations at Los Alamos Plutonium Facility (TA-55) use high temperature melt s of calcium chloride for the reduction of plutonium oxide to plutonium metal and hi gh temperature combined melts of sodium chloride and potassium chloride mixtures for the electrorefining purification of plutonium metal . The remaining plutonium and americium are recovered from thes e salts by dissolution in concentrated hydrochloric acid followed by either solvent extraction or io n exchange for isolation and ultimately converted to oxide after precipitation with oxalic acid . Figur e 1 illustrates the current aqueous chloride flow sheet used for plutonium processing at TA-55 .

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• OSTI ID: 976555
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-03-0956
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
AMERICIUM
CALCIUM CHLORIDES
CHLORIDES
DISSOLUTION
ELECTROREFINING
HYDROCHLORIC ACID
LOS ALAMOS
MIXTURES
OXALIC ACID
OXIDES
PLUTONIUM
PLUTONIUM CHLORIDES
PLUTONIUM OXIDES
POTASSIUM CHLORIDES
PRECIPITATION
PROCESSING
PURIFICATION
SODIUM CHLORIDES
SOLVENT EXTRACTION
WASHING