Investigation of polonium removal systems for lead-bismuth cooled fast reactors using a tellurium surrogate -part III

Ohno, Shuji  ; P. Loewen, Eric*; Auman, L. E.*

The alkaline extraction method and electro-deposition method have been investigated at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to remove polonium from a lead-bismuth cooled reactor. Tellurium was used as a surrogate for polonium for these experiments to quantify the migration. From the chemical kinetic measurements of extraction tests using NaOH as alkaline, first and second order alkaline extraction rate constants were suggested to be: k1=300exp(-64300/RT), k2=42700exp(-122400/RT), where R=8.31J/mol/K and T is in degrees K. Some experimental data showed tellurium moving from NaOH back into LBE, allowing the measurement of the reverse rate reaction constant. We suggest the following linear fit to determine the equilibrium constant as a function of the temperature: Log(K)=-3195/T+5.199. The electro-deposition experiments were initiated. The limited number of runs provided the information of the effect of electrodes surface area and temperature on the tellurium collection characteristics. However, further experiments are necessary for acquiring more knowledge. This paper is a continuation of the results reported in the previous ICONE papers: ICONE11-36614 and ICONE12-49396.