Process to separate transuranic elements from nuclear waste
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy
InventorsTerry R. Johnson, John P. Ackerman, Zygmunt Tomczuk, Donald F. Fischer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process for removing transuranic elements from a waste chloride electrolytic salt containing transuranic elements in addition to rare earth and other fission product elements so the salt waste may be disposed of more easily and the valuable transuranic elements may be recovered for reuse. The salt is contacted with a cadmium-uranium alloy which selectively extracts the transuranic elements from the salt. The waste salt is generated during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel associated with the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).
Claims10
A process for separating transuranic values from rare earth values when said values are contained together in a molten chloride salt comprising:
- contacting the molten salt with a molten extractant alloy of cadmium metal and uranium whereby the transuranic values are preferentially taken up by the extractant alloy, and
- separating the extractant alloy from the molten salt thereby separating the transuranic values from the rare earth values.
In the process for pyrochemically reprocessing irradiated metallic zirconium-uranium-plutonium nuclear reactor fuel containing other transuranic and rare earth elements, wherein the fuel is dissolved in molten cadium contained in a container in the bottom of an electrorefining cell, an electrode is placed in a molten chloride electrolytic salt located above the molten cadmium containing the dissolved reactor fuel, and a current is passed between the molten cadmium and the electrode whereby the most of the transuranic elements pass from the cadmium through the salt to the electrode while the rare earths pass into and remain in the salt, an improvement in the process for recovering the residual transuranic elements from the salt comprising contacting the salt with a molten extractant alloy of cadmium metal containing uranium metal in an amount up to about 2.3 weight percent, whereby the transuranic elements are preferentially taken up by the extractant, while the rare earth elements preferentially remain in the salt and separating the extractant metal from the salt thereby separating the transuranic values from the rare earth values.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.