• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.681-687
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• 2016

Zirconium(Zr) nuclear fuel cladding tubes are made using a three-time pilgering and annealing process. In order to remove the oxidized layer and impurities on the surface of the tube, a pickling process is required. Zr is dissolved in HF and $HNO_3$ mixed acid during the process and pickling waste acid, including dissolved Zr, is totally discarded after being neutralized. In this study, the waste acid was recycled by adding $BaF_2$, which reacted with the Zr ion involved in the waste acid; $Ba_2ZrF_8$ was subsequently precipitated due to its low solubility in water. It is very difficult to extract zirconium from the as-recovered $Ba_2ZrF_8$ because its melting temperature is $1031^{\circ}C$. Hence, we tried to recover Zr using an electrowinning process with a low temperature molten salt compound that was fabricated by adding $ZrF_4$ to $Ba_2ZrF_8$ to decrease the melting point. Change of the Zr redox potential was observed using cyclic voltammetry; the voltage change of the cell was observed by polarization and chronopotentiometry. The structure of the electrodeposited Zr was analyzed and the electrodeposition characteristics were also evaluated.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.29-37
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• 2017

Nuclear fuel cladding tube is fabricated by pilgering and annealing process. In order to remove impurity and oxygen layer on the surface, pickling process is carried out. When Zirconium(Zr) is dissolved and saturated in acid solution during the pickling process, all the waste acid including Zr is disposed. Therefore, $BaF_2$ is added into the waste acid to extract Zr and $Ba_2ZrF_8$ is subsequently formed. To recycle Zr by electrowinning process, $Ba_2ZrF_8$ is used as electrolyte, but it has high melting point ($1053^{\circ}C$). $ZrF_4$ should be added into $Ba_2ZrF_8$ to decrease the melting point. In this paper, it was investigated that $Ba_2ZrF_8$ was separated to $BaF_2$ and $ZrF_4$ by vacuum distillation. Firstly, $BaF_2$ with different particle size ($1{\mu}m$, $35{\mu}m$, $110{\mu}m$) was added into the waste acid and the respective precipitation property was estimated. $BaF_2$ obtained by vacuum distillation was shattered by ball-milling with different time. The precipitation efficiency was compared with $1{\mu}m$ of ${BaF_2}^{\prime}s$ one, which was not used as precipitation agent.