An Assessment of multistage counter current extraction of TRU from spent molten salt into liquid metal, 2; Effect of stage efficiency, scrub stage, and TRU concentration

Kobayashi, Tsuguyuki

Calculation procedures were developed to evaluate the performance of the multi-stage counter current extraction of TRU from spent molten salt into liquid metal. This procedure considers the stage efficiency and the scrub stage. The following was found using procedures, which supplements previous papers. When Cd is used as the liquid metal, at least 4 stages are necessary to recover 99% of TRU from the salt with decontamination factor () higher than 5. Stage efficiency of the extraction should be better than 80% for a practical application. The scrub stage is not very effective in improving the when the total number of extractions is limited. The slightly increases with higher TRU concentration in the salt due to the effect of the accompanying lanthanide FP as reductant. It was found to be very difficult to separate Np, Am or Cm from Pu, so that the extraction process has inherent proliferation resistance.