• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.268-277
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• 2004

process (ACP), electrochemical properties of high heat-generating alkali and alkali earth oxides in molten salt were measured and the behavior of those elements were analyzed. The reduction potentials of Cs, Sr, and Ba in a molten LiCl-$Li_2O$ system were more cathodic than that of Li and closely located one another. Thus, it is expected that the alkali and alkali earth would not hinder the reaction mechanism which is via lithium reduction. Alkali and alkali earth metals are likely to recycle into molten salt when the process is operated beyond metal reduction potentials and the effect of electric current on the mass transport is also determined by measuring the metal concentrations in the molten salt phase at different current conditions.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.179-189
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• 2014

Pyroprocessing has been developed for the purpose of resolving the current spent nuclear fuel management issue and enhancing the recycle of valuable resources. An electrolytic reduction of the pyroprocessing is a process to reduce oxides into metals using LiCl as an electrolyte and requires a post-treatment process due to the inclusion of residual salt in porous metal products. A vacuum distillation has been adopted for various molten salt systems and could be applied to the post-treatment process of the electrolytic reduction. The residual salt in the metal products includes LiCl, alkali chlorides, and alkaline earth chlorides. In this paper, vapor pressures of chlorides have been estimated and the composition changes on the residual liquid during the vacuum distillation process have been calculated. A model combining a material balance and vapor-liquid equilibrium relations has been proposed under a constant vapor discharging flow rate and liquid composition changes have been calculated using the vapor pressures with respect to a dimensionless time. The behaviors have been compared with temperature and molten salt composition changes to simulate the process condition variation. The distillation of the residual salt has been dominated by LiCl which is the main component of the salt and CsCl of which vapor pressure is higher than that of LiCl would be readily removed. RbCl exhibits similar vapor pressure with LiCl and maintains its composition. However, $SrCl_2$ and $BaCl_2$ of which vapor pressures are much lower than that of LiCl are concentrated with time and expected to be possibly precipitated during the distillation when the initial compositions are increased.