Electrolytic Extraction of platinum group metals from Purex process solutions.(2)

not registered ; not registered; not registered

Elimination of the ionic platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, ruthenium) and technetium from dissolver solution seems to be an effective method to improve the stability, reliability and operability of the extraction process in spent nuclear fuel reprocessing. Some fundamental experiments were conducted for the purpose of establishing this new method. A method of electrolytic extraction to separate and recover such metals from Purex process solutions was investigated. Potentiostatic investigations of platinum group metals were carried out to identify deposition starting potential and rate in a nitric acid condition. As the results, it was found that the deposition rate depended on the electrode material, temperature, nitric acid concentration and coexistence ions. The deposition rate were found to be related to the polalization potential, and the optimum deposition potential was specified for each of platinum group metals.