Fuel Conditioning Facility Electrorefiner Model Predictions versus Measurements

Abstract

Electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel is performed in the Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) by electrochemically separating uranium from the fission products and structural materials in a vessel called an electrorefiner (ER). To continue processing without waiting for sample analyses to assess process conditions, an ER process model predicts the composition of the ER inventory and effluent streams via multi-component, multi-phase chemical equilibrium for chemical reactions and a numerical solution to differential equations for electro-chemical transport. The results of the process model were compared to the electrorefiner measured data.

Keywords:

• Electrochemical processing
• electrorefiner
• process modeling