I-NERI ANNUAL TECHNICAL PROGRESS REPORT: 2006-002-K, Separation of Fission Products from Molten LiCl-KCl Salt Used for Electrorefining of Metal Fuels
An attractive alternative to the once-through disposal of electrorefiner salt is to selectively remove the active fission products from the salt and recycle the salt back to the electrorefiner (ER). This would allow salt reuse for some number of cycles before ultimate disposal of the salt in a ceramic waste form. Reuse of ER salt would, thus, greatly reduce the volume of ceramic waste produced during the pyroprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. This final portion of the joint I-NERI research project is to demonstrate the separation of fission products from molten ER salt by two methods previously selected during phase two (FY-08) of this project. The two methods selected were salt/zeolite contacting and rare-earth fission product precipitation by oxygen bubbling. The ER salt used in these tests came from the Mark-IV electrorefiner used to anodically dissolved driver fuel from the EBR-II reactor on the INL site. The tests were performed using the Hot Fuel Dissolution Apparatus (HFDA) located in the main cell of the Hot Fuels Examination Facility (HFEF) at the Materials and Fuels complex on the INL site. Results from these tests were evaluated during a joint meeting of KAERI and INL investigators to provide recommendations as to the future direction of fission product removal from electrorefiner salt that accumulate during spent fuel treatment. Additionally, work continued on kinetic measurements of surrogate quaternary salt systems to provide fundamental kinetics on the ion exchange system and to expand the equilibrium model system developed during the first two phases of this project. The specific objectives of the FY09 I-NERI research activities at the INL include the following: • Perform demonstration tests of the selected KAERI precipitation and INL salt/zeolite contacting processes for fission product removal using radioactive, fission product loaded ER salt • Continue kinetic studies of the quaternary Cs/Sr-LiCl-KCl system to determine the rate of ion exchange during the salt/zeolite contacting process • Compare the adsorption models to experimentally obtained, ER salt results • Evaluate results obtained from the oxygen precipitation and salt/zeolite ion exchange studies to determine the best processes for selective fission-product removal from electrorefiner salt.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 971358
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-09-16903; TRN: US1001302
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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