Interinstitutional Study of the New EURO-GANEX Process Resistance by Gamma Irradiation Test Loops
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- Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT), Madrid (Spain)
- Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), (France); Montpellier University (France)
- Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Univ. of Parma (Italy)
- Forschungszentrum Julich (Germany). Inst. fur Energie- und Klimaforschung (IEK)
- Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (KIT) (Germany). Institute for Nuclear Waste Disposal (INE)
As part of the homogeneous actinides recycling strategy, the EURO-GANEX process is one of the most promising options to achieve the goal of minor actinides recovery. However, EURO-GANEX also has various drawbacks that are being addressed. Improvements made to EURO-GANEX system have resulted in the emergence of the so-called New EURO-GANEX process, where the composition of the solvent has been modified by replacing TODGA and DMDOHEMA with cis-mTDDGA in the organic phase and SO3-Ph-BTP with PyTri-Diol in the aqueous phase in order to resolve important issues. The objective of this work is twofold: evaluate the gamma radiolysis resistance of the new EURO-GANEX process by dynamic irradiation conditions simulating the three main steps of the process and validate the design of CIEMAT Náyade, CEA Marcel and INL irradiation loop devices since each of them mimics different aspects of the real process. Náyade and the INL loops could irradiate together the organic and aqueous phases, whereas in the CEA loop, the irradiated solvent is recycled continuously inside a platform with several stages of mixer-settlers containing aqueous flows simulating the three main steps of the process. The extraction performances and changes in the composition of the solvent have been analysed during the irradiation experiment by different techniques: gamma spectrometry and ICP-MS/OES for cations or tracers extraction, and HPLC-MS to quantify the degradation and evaluate the degradation compounds. Additionally, in spite of some differences between the three-irradiation facilities, this inter-institutional study shows that they are three comparative tools, which provide results on the stability towards radiolysis of a liquid-liquid extraction system. Favourable extraction results for the different steps are obtained according to the static irradiation studies found in literature. However, the degradation of cis-mTDDGA is appreciable leading to degradation compounds, some of which form precipitates and produce important changes in viscosity, important aspects that must be addressed prior to the successful industrial application of the new EURO-GANEX process.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 2282761
- Report Number(s):
- INL/JOU--23-73547-Rev001
- Journal Information:
- Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, Journal Name: Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research Journal Issue: 47 Vol. 62; ISSN 0888-5885
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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