• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.83-83
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• 2017

Electrorefining is a key step in pyroprocessing. The electrorefining process is generally composed of two recovery steps - the deposit of uranium onto a solid cathode and the recovery of the remaining uranium and TRU elements simultaneously by a liquid cadmium cathode. The solid cathode processing is necessary to separate the salt from the cathode since the uranium deposit in a solid cathode contains electrolyte salt. Distillation process was employed for the cathode processing. It is very important to increase the throughput of the salt separation system due to the high uranium content of spent nuclear fuel and high salt fraction of uranium dendrites. In this study, a mesh-covered crucible was investigated for the sat distillation of electrorefiner uranium deposits. A liquid salt separation step and a vacuum distillation step were combined for salt separation. The adhered salt in uranium deposits was efficiently removed in the mesh-covered crucible. The salt distiller was operated simply since repeated cooling - heating step was not necessary for the change of the crucible. The operation time could be reduced by the use of the mesh-covered crucible and the combined operation of the two steps. A method to preserve a vacuum level was proposed by double O-rings during the operation of the distiller with the mesh-covered crucible. After the salt distillation, the salt content was measured and was below 0.1wt% after the salt distillation. The residual salt after the salt distillation can be removed further during melting of uranium metal.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2005.11b
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• pp.176-181
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• 2005

The electrolytic reduction process and the electrorefining process, which are being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), are to generate molten waste salts such as LiCI salt and LiCI-KCI eutectic salt, respectively. Our goal in waste salt management is to minimize a total waste generation and fabricate a very low­leaching waste form such as a ceramic waste form. Zeolite has been known to one of the most desirable media to immobilize waste salt, which is water soluble and easily radiolyzed. Zeolite can be also used to the removal of fission products from the spent waste salt. Molten LiCI salt is mixed with zeolite A at $650^{\circ}C$ to form a salt-loaded zeolite, and then thermally treated in above $900^{\circ}C$ to become an immobilized product with crystal phase of $Li_{8}Cl_{2}$-Sodalite. In this work, a crystal phase changes of immobilization medium, zeolite, during immobilization of molten LiCI salt using zeolite A is introduced.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.1866-1870
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• 2019

Residual salt separation is an essential step in pyroprocessing because its reaction products, as prepared by electrochemical unit processes, contain frozen residual electrolyte species, which are generally composed of alkali-metal chloride salts (e.g., LiCl, KCl). In this study, a simple technique that utilizes high-temperature gas flux as a driving force to melt and push out the residual salt in the reaction products was developed. This technique is simple as it only requires the use of a heating gun in combination with a gas injection system. Consequently, $LiNO_3-ZrO_2$ and $LiCl-ZrO_2$ mixtures were successfully separated by the high-temperature gas injection (separation efficiency > 93%), thereby demonstrating the viability of this simple technique for residual salt separation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.1184-1189
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• 2018

Pyroprocessing uses various molten salts during electrochemical unit processes. Reaction products after the electrochemical processes must contain a significant amount of residual salts to be separated. Vacuum distillation is a common method to separate the residual salts; however, its high operation temperature may cause side reactions. In this study, a simple rotation technique using centrifugal force was suggested to separate the residual salts from the reaction products at relatively low temperature compared to the distillation technique. When a reaction product container with porous wall rotates inside a vessel heated above the melting point of the residual salt, the residual salt in the liquid phase is separated through centrifugal force. It was shown that the $LiNO_3-Al_2O_3$ mixture can be separated by this technique to leave solid $Al_2O_3$ inside the container, with a separation efficiency of 99.4%.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2004

The objectives were to compare the salt tolerance levels in the parental rice cultivar, Dongjinbyeo, and induced mutagenesis derived its lines for plant height, MDA, ATPase, POD, and 2-dimensional protein electrophoresis pattern in NaCl-containing hydroponic nutrient solutions. Rice plants isolated from a population of rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. Dongjinbyeo) mutation lines, which were generated in combination with in vitro selection and gamma-ray, exhibited salt tolerance. Line No. 18 had the longest plant, whereas NaCl-sensitive line (No. 25) had the shortest plant. The parent, and the sensitive line showed severe damage from salt stress. Tolerant lines (No. 18, 50) had a lower malonaldehyde (MDA) content than the sensitive one (Dongjinbyeo, No. 25) during salt stress. Several proteins showed significant quantitative variation through 2DE; phosphoribulokinase, peroxidase, oxygen evolving enhancer 1 and the $H^+-ATPase$, which are known to be involved in salt tolerance. The effect of salt on peroxidase and $H^+-ATPase$ activity in the seedlings of two groups with contrasting genotypes of rice was studied. A greater activity was recorded in the tolerant lines as compared to the sensitive ones (P<0.05, Duncan's test). The results indicate that salt tolerant lines expressed more salt stress-inducible proteins associated with salt tolerance than the sensitive lines during salt stress.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2003

Doubled haploids have long been recognized as a valuable tool in plant breeding since it not only offers the quickest method of advancing heterozygous breeding lines to homozygosity, but also increased the selection efficiency over conventional procedures due to better discrimination between genotypes within any one generation. Salt tolerant mutants were obtained in rice the variety, 'Hawsungbyeo', through in vitro mutagenesis of in vitro cultured anther-derived calli. Various doses (30, 50, 70 and 90 Gy) of gamma ray were applied to investigate the effect of radiation on callus formation on medium containing 1% NaCl, green plant regeneration, frequency of selected doubled haploid mutants and of the salt tolerant screen. It was demonstrated that the dose of 30 and 50 Gy gamma rays had significant effects on callus formation, regeneration and selection of salt tolerance. No tolerant lines were obtained from non-mutagenized cultures. From gamma ray irradiated cultures, five tolerant lines ($M_2$generation) at germination stage and 13 tolerant lines ($M_3$genoration) at seedling stage were obtained. The frequency of salt tolerant mutants indicates that anther culture applied in connection with gamma rays is an effective way to improve salt tolerance.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2012

Proteomic analysis was performed in order to identify proteomic changes by salt stress between the Japonica cv. Donganbyeo (WT) and two salt-tolerant (ST) mutant lines by using the SDS-PAGE and 2-DE. Two salt tolerant rice mutant lines, ST-87 and ST-301, were selected by in vitro mutagenesis with gamma-ray. Three-week-old seedlings were treated with 171 mM NaCl for 7 days. In the SDS-PAGE, three proteins with molecular weights of 27, 46 and 58 kDa were highly increased under salt treatment. Total proteins from shoots of both WT and ST-lines were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. In 2-DE, 201, 226, 217 and 213 protein spots were detected in the untreated-or treated-WT and untreated- or treated-ST-87, respectively. Of theses, 17 and 10 protein spots were up- and down-regulated under salt stress in the WT, respectively. While, 16 and 8 protein spots were up- and down-regulated under salt stress in the ST-87, respectively, compared with the untreated plants. High intensity or de novo synthesized proteins were analyzed by MALDI-TOF/MS analysis.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.309-313
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• 2018

In this study, we prepared Li-K-Cd alloy, which meets the requirement of eutectic ratio of Li:K, to maintain the operating temperature of the drawdown process at $500^{\circ}C$ and to achieve the reuse of LiCl-KCl molten salt. The prepared Li-K-Cd alloys were added to LiCl-KCl salt bearing U and Nd at $500^{\circ}C$ to investigate the removal of $UCl_3$ in the salt. The reduction of $UCl_3$ in the salt was examined by measuring the OCP value of salt and analyzing the salt composition by ICP-OES. Reduction was also visually confirmed by change of salt color from dark purple to white. The experimental results reveal that the prepared Li-K-Cd alloy has reductive extractability for $UCl_3$ in salt. By improving the preparation method, the Li-K-Cd alloy can be applied to the drawdown process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.74-74
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• 2017

Electrorefining is a key step in pyroprocessing. The electrorefining process is generally composed of two recovery steps - the deposit of uranium onto a solid cathode and the recovery of the remaining uranium and TRU elements simultaneously by a liquid cadmium cathode. Uranium deposit recovered from the solid cathode is a dendritic powder. It is necessary to separate the adhered salt from the deposits prior to the consolidation of uranium deposit. The adhered salt is composed of lithium, potassium, uranium, and rare earth chlorides. Distillation process was employed for the cathode processing. One of the operation methods is distillation of the salt at low temperature ($900^{\circ}C$), and then melting of the deposit at high temperature to avoid a backward reaction. For the development of the salt distiller, the distillation behavior of the low vapor pressure chlorides should be studied. Rare earth chlorides in the adhered salt of uranium deposits have relatively low vapor pressures compared to the process salt (LiCl-KCl). In this study, the evaporation rates of the lanthanum and neodymium chlorides were measured for the salt separation from electrorefiner uranium deposits in the temperature range of $825{\sim}910^{\circ}C$. The evaporation rate of both chlorides increased with an increasing templerature. The evaporation rate of lanthanum chloride varied from 0.12 to $1.68g/cm^2/h$. Neodymium chloride was more volatile than lanthanum chloride. The evaporation rate of neodymium chloride varied from 0.20 to $4.55g/cm^2/h$. The evaporation rate of both chlorides are more than $1g/cm^2/h$ at $900^{\circ}C$. Even though the evaporation rates of both chlorides were less than that of the process salt, the contents of the lanthanide chlorides were small in the adhered salt. Therefore it can be concluded that $900^{\circ}C$ is suitable for the operation temperature of the salt distiller.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.373-382
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• 2020

This study proposes a method of separating uranium (U) and minor actinides from rare earth (RE) elements in the LiCl-KCl salt system. Several RE metals were used to reduce UCl₃ and MgCl₂ from the eutectic LiCl-KCl salt systems. Five experiments were performed on drawdown U and plutonium (Pu) surrogate elements from RECl₃-enriched LiCl-KCl salt systems at 773 K. Via the introduction of RE metals into the salt system, it was observed that the UCl₃ concentration can be lowered below 100 ppm. In addition, UCl₃ was reduced into a powdery form that easily settled at the bottom and was successfully collected by a salt distillation operation. When the RE metals come into contact with a metallic structure, a galvanic interaction occurs dominantly, seemingly accelerating the U recovery reaction. These results elucidate the development of an effective and simple process that selectively removes actinides from electrorefining salt, thus contributing to the minimization of the influx of actinides into the nuclear fuel waste stream.