Purification of uranium products in crystallization system for nuclear fuel reprocessing

Takeuchi, Masayuki ; Yano, Kimihiko ; Shibata, Atsuhiro  ; Sambommatsu, Yuji*; Nakamura, Kazuhito*; Chikazawa, Takahiro*; Hirasawa, Izumi*

Uranium crystallization system has been developed to establish an advanced aqueous reprocessing for fast breeder reactor (FBR) fuel cycle in JAEA. In the advanced process, most of uranium in dissolved solution of spent FBR-MOX fuels with high heavy metal concentration is separated as uranyl nitrate hexahydrate (UNH) crystals by a cooling operation. The technical targets on the crystallization system are decided from FBR cycle performance, and the U yield from dissolved solution of the spent fuel is 70% and the decontamination factor (DF) of impurities in the crystal products is more than 100. The DF is lowered by involving liquid and solid impurities on and in the UNH crystals during the crystallization. In order to achieve the DF target, we discussed the purification technology of UNH crystals using a Kureha crystal purifier. As results, the uranium more than 90% in the feed crystals could be recovered as the purified crystals in all test conditions, and the DFs of solid and liquid impurities on the purified crystals showed more than 100 under longer residence time of crystals. In conclusion, the both targets for the yield and DF could be achieved simultaneously by introducing the crystal purification technology.