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The evaporation behaviors of rare-earth-doped FLiNaK melts during low-pressure distillation

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Abstract

Low pressure distillation of FLiNaK containing rare earth fluorides was carried out to investigate evaporation behaviors of FLiNaK as well as decontamination of rare earth fluorides. Evaporation rate of NdF3–FLiNaK increased with rising temperature. Decontamination factors (DFs) of six rare earth elements were around 103 and 104 except europium due to the formation of EuF2. A higher DF of europium up to 1.4 × 103 was obtained upon the addition of oxidant CeF4. A hundred-gram scale experiment on FLiNaK containing NdF3 and EuF3 was performed, with a recovery ratio of 94.2% and the DF of europium to 2.4 × 103 at 900 °C.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the “Strategic Priority Research Program” of the Chinese Academy of Science (Grant No. XDA02030000), “Study on some key issues on Th-U Fuel cycle” (Grant No. QYZDY-SSW-JSC016) and “Young Thousand Talented Program”.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

      Zihao Wang, Haiying Fu, Yang Yang, Junxia Geng, Yunpeng Jia, Dandan Huang, Wenxin Li, Yu Gong, Qiang Dou & Qingnuan Li

    2. Center of Excellence TMSR Energy System, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

      Zihao Wang, Haiying Fu, Yang Yang, Junxia Geng, Yunpeng Jia, Dandan Huang, Wenxin Li, Yu Gong, Qiang Dou & Qingnuan Li

    3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

      Yunpeng Jia

    4. Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China

      Dandan Huang

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    1. Zihao Wang
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    Correspondence to Yu Gong or Qiang Dou.

    Additional information

    Zihao Wang and Haiying Fu have contributed equally on this work.

    Glossary

    Decontamination factor

    Mass fraction ratio of analyzed element in the evaporated sample and condensed salt, abbreviated as DF

    Separation efficiency of EuF3

    Mass ratio of EuF3 in residual salt after distillation and EuF3 in the original salt

    Recovery ratio

    Mass ratio of collected salt and evaporated salt

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    Wang, Z., Fu, H., Yang, Y. et al. The evaporation behaviors of rare-earth-doped FLiNaK melts during low-pressure distillation. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 311, 637–642 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-016-5110-0

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-016-5110-0

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