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Reactive-crystallization method for purification of LiCl salt waste

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Abstract

Owing to its capability of high-temperature operation, a salt waste treatment process in a pyrochemical process which uses molten salt as an electrolyte for the recycling of spent nuclear fuel adopted melt-crystallization method to purify a molten salt waste generated during the processes. However, because of its high operating temperature, there is a corrosion problem in the crystallizer made of Inconel 625 alloy, resulting in the contamination of crystallized salt on the crystallization plates. To solve the corrosion problem stemming from the molten salt waste under high operation temperature, a reactive-crystallization method was suggested in this study, in which the corrosion products are precipitated by the addition of lithium carbonate as a precipitation agent. To determine the effectiveness of the process, the concentration of corrosion products were analyzed for each stage of the process with respect to the values obtained using the previous melt-crystallization method. In addition, the nuclide separation efficiencies of group I/II and rare-earth nuclides were investigated using the reactive-crystallization method. Through the study, it is found that the reactive-crystallization method is effective in terms of removal of corrosion products, thus resulting in high nuclide separation efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (NRF-2017M2A8A5015082).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radioactive Waste Treatment Research Team, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111 Daedeok-daero 989, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Jung-Hoon Choi, Ki-Rak Lee, Hyun-Woo Kang & Hwan-Seo Park

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  1. Jung-Hoon Choi
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  2. Ki-Rak Lee
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  3. Hyun-Woo Kang
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  4. Hwan-Seo Park
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Correspondence to Jung-Hoon Choi.

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Choi, JH., Lee, KR., Kang, HW. et al. Reactive-crystallization method for purification of LiCl salt waste. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 325, 485–492 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07235-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07235-0

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