Abstract
Electrochemical processing technology is currently being used for the treatment of metallic spent fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II at Idaho National Laboratory. The treatment of oxide-based spent nuclear fuel via electrochemical processing is possible provided there is a front-end oxide reduction step. During this reduction process, certain fission products, including Cs and Sr, partition into the salt phase and form chlorides. Both solid state and molten LiCl-zeolite-A ion exchange tests were conducted for selectively removing Cs and Sr from LiCl-based salt. The solid-state tests produced in excess of 99% removal of Cs and Sr. The molten state tests failed due to phase transformation of the zeolite structure when in contact with the molten LiCl salt.
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge Joanna Taylor at University of Idaho for her help in performing ICP-MS analysis. This manuscript has been authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.