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Journal

2015 | 60 | 4 | 907-914

Article title

Pyrochemical reprocessing of molten salt fast reactor fuel: focus on the reductive extraction step

Content

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Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
The nuclear fuel reprocessing is a prerequisite for nuclear energy to be a clean and sustainable energy. In the case of the molten salt reactor containing a liquid fuel, pyrometallurgical way is an obvious way. The method for treatment of the liquid fuel is divided into two parts. In-situ injection of helium gas into the fuel leads to extract the gaseous fission products and a part of the noble metals. The second part of the reprocessing is performed by ‘batch’. It aims to recover the fissile material and to separate the minor actinides from fission products. The reprocessing involves several chemical steps based on redox and acido-basic properties of the various elements contained in the fuel salt. One challenge is to perform a selective extraction of actinides and lanthanides in spent liquid fuel. Extraction of actinides and lanthanides are successively performed by a reductive extraction in liquid bismuth pool containing metallic lithium as a reductive reagent. The objective of this paper is to give a description of the several steps of the reprocessing retained for the molten salt fast reactor (MSFR) concept and to present the initial results obtained for the reductive extraction experiments realized in static conditions by contacting LiF-ThF4-UF4-NdF3 with a lab-made Bi-Li pool and for which extraction efficiencies of 0.7% for neodymium and 14.0% for uranium were measured. It was concluded that in static conditions, the extraction is governed by a kinetic limitation and not by the thermodynamic equilibrium.

Publisher

Journal

Year

Volume

60

Issue

4

Pages

907-914

Physical description

Dates

published
1 - 12 - 2015
accepted
16 - 9 - 2015
received
19 - 6 - 2015
online
30 - 12 - 2015

Contributors

  • Institut de Physique Nucléaire, CNRS-IN2P3, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91406 Orsay Cedex, France
  • Institut de Physique Nucléaire, CNRS-IN2P3, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91406 Orsay Cedex, France
  • Institut de Physique Nucléaire, CNRS-IN2P3, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, 91406 Orsay Cedex, France

References

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Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.-psjd-doi-10_1515_nuka-2015-0153
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