Claims
- 1. A process of treating spent nuclear fuel by means of pyroprocessing comprising:dividing a spent nuclear fuel rod into small segments; placing said segments in a basket; heating a salt past its melting point, in a dissolver container, so as to form a molten salt bath where said salt is ZrF4 rich and is selected so that said molten salt bath dissolves oxides of U, Th, and rare earth while leaving undissolved Pu oxide and noble metal fission products; placing said basket into said molten salt bath for a sufficient period of time to allow for a dissolution of the oxides of U, Th, and rare earth to form a salt bath solution; removing said basket after the dissolution is complete wherein said basket contains PuO2 and undissolved parts of said fuel rod.
- 2. The process of claim 1 wherein said salt bath solution is subjected to hydrofluorination to remove oxygen from said solution and then recycled to said dissolver container.
- 3. The process of claim 1 wherein said salt bath solution is passed through a fluorination process to remove U as gaseous UF6 and a salt bleed minus most UF4 is either recycled back to said dissolver container or is processed to form fluorapatite.
- 4. The process of claim 1 wherein said basket and its contents are processed to remove Pu compounds present after the dissolution is complete.
- 5. The claim 1 wherein said salt also contains alkali or alkaline earth fluorides.
- 6. The process of claim 5 wherein the salt is LiF-50 mol % ZrF4 with a eutectic melting point of approximately 500° C.
- 7. The process of claim 1 wherein said salt bath is heated to a temperature between 550° C. to 700° C.
- 8. The process of claim 1 wherein a salt bleed containing UF4 is processed to form an fluorapatite.
- 9. A process of treating spent nuclear fuel by means of pyroprocessing comprising:dividing a spent nuclear fuel rod into small segments; placing said segments in a basket; heating a salt past its melting point, in a dissolver container, so as to form a molten salt bath where said salt is LiF-50 Mol % ZrF4 which dissolves oxides of U, Th, and rare earth while leaving undissolved Pu oxide and noble metal fission products; placing said basket into said molten salt bath for a sufficient period of time to allow for a dissolution of the oxides of U, Th, and rare earth to form a salt bath solution; removing said basket after the dissolution is complete wherein said basket contains PuO2 and undissolved parts of said fuel rod.
- 10. The process of claim 9 wherein said salt bath solution is subjected to hydro-fluorination to remove oxygen from said solution and then recycled to said dissolver container.
- 11. The process of claim 9 wherein said salt bath solution is passed through a fluorination process to remove U as gaseous UF6 and a salt bleed minus most UF4 is either recycled back to said dissolver container or is processed to form fluorapatite.
- 12. The process of claim 9 wherein said basket and its contents are processed to remove Pu compounds present after the dissolution is complete.
- 13. The claim 9 wherein said salt also contains alkali or alkaline earth fluorides.
- 14. The process of claim 9 wherein the LiF-50 mol % ZrF4 salt has a eutectic melting point of approximately 500° C.
- 15. The process of claim 9 wherein said salt bath is heated to a temperature between 550° C. to 700° C.
- 16. The process of claim 9 wherein a salt bleed containing UF4 is processed to form an fluorapatite.
CONTRACTUAL ORIGIN OF THE INVENTION
The United States Government has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. W-31-109-ENG-38 between the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Chicago.
US Referenced Citations (2)
Number |
Name |
Date |
Kind |
3981960 |
Brambilla et al. |
Sep 1976 |
A |
5202100 |
Nagel et al. |
Apr 1993 |
A |