Recovery of uranium and plutonium metals through cathode processing of electrodeposits from reduced oxide fuel anodes

Hijikata, Takatoshi*; Koyama, Tadafumi*; Usami, Tsuyoshi*; Kitawaki, Shininchi ; Shinozaki, Tadahiro; Fukushima, Mineo

Electrometallurgical pyroprocess is one of the most promising technologies for the advanced fuel cycle. This process consists of (1) reduction of oxide fuel by lithium reductant, (2) molten salt electrorefining to recover U and U-Pu-Cd alloys, (3) separation of salt and Cd from electro-deposits by distillation, and (4) injection casting to form metal fuel.10 grams of reduced actinide metal was dissolved as U or Pu and recovered as dendritic U metal at iron cathode or as U-Pu-Cd alloy at Cd cathode, respectively. Most of salt adhering on U dendrite (around 15 grams) was found to distil up to 1273K, and around 7 grams of U metal ingot was obtained by heating to 1673K. Whereas most of Cd in U-Pu-Cd alloy (124g) distilled at around 823K and most of salt on the Cd cathode distilled up to 1273K, resulting in recovery of metallic U-Pu products (around 7 grams).