US EPA

1442343 

Journal Article 

On the development of a distillation process for the electrometallurgical treatment of irradiated spent nuclear fuel 

Westphav, BR; Marsden, KC; Price, JC; Laug, DV 

2008 

1 

Nuclear Engineering and Technology
ISSN: 1738-5733 

40 

3 

163-174 

WOS:000255717900001 

As part of the spent fuel treatment program at the Idaho National Laboratory, a vacuum distillation process is being employed for the recovery of actinide products following an electrorefining process. Separation of the actinide products from a molten salt electrolyte and cadmium is achieved by a batch operation called cathode processing. A cathode processor has been designed and developed to efficiently remove the process chemicals and consolidate the actinide products for further processing. This paper describes the fundamentals of cathode processing, the evolution of the equipment design, the operation and efficiency of the equipment, and recent developments at the cathode processor. In addition, challenges encountered during the processing of irradiated spent nuclear fuel in the cathode processor will be discussed. 

vacuum distillation; actinide recovery; electrometallurgical treatment; pyroprocesssing