Evaluation of the mass transfer coefficients for the minor actinide separation; Evaluation by the single drop method

Sakamoto, Atsushi  ; Kibe, Satoshi*; Kawanobe, Kazunori*; Fujisaku, Kazuhiko*; Sano, Yuichi   ; Takeuchi, Masayuki ; Suzuki, Hideya*; Tsubata, Yasuhiro   ; Ban, Yasutoshi  ; Matsumura, Tatsuro  

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been developing a solvent extraction process called SELECT to recover minor actinides (MA) from spent nuclear fuel. In the SELECT process, TDdDGA, HONTA, and ADAAM are used as the extractants for MA + Ln corecovery, MA/Ln separation and Am/Cm separation, respectively. These extractants do not contain phosphorus (P), and consist of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N). In this study, in order to give beneficial information for designing flowsheet, the mass transfer coefficients of Ln between HNO solution and TDdDGA or HONTA / n-dodecane solvent were evaluated by the single drop technique. Prior to the evaluation of mass transfer coefficient, we had optimized the structure of the single drop apparatus to improve accuracy of the measurement. Based on the mass transfer coefficients obtained in HNO / TDdDGA-n-dodecane system, Ln behaviors in the counter-current extraction and back-extraction using mixer-settlers and centrifugal contactors were estimated by simple calculation, and they had a good agreement with our previous experimental results. We also confirmed the mass transfer coefficients of Ln in HNO / HONTA - n-dodecane system are under 10 m/s.