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Development, feasibility, and uncertainty of radioactive 22Na tracer dilution and gamma spectroscopy for mass determination of molten salt for pyroprocessing spent nuclear fuels

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Abstract

Accurate knowledge of the total mass of molten salts both for pyroprocessing spent nuclear fuels and for molten salt reactors is necessary for safeguards purposes. However, it is challenging to know or measure the total mass of molten salt due to the complicated shapes as well as the compositional—and thus density—changes that occur over time during operation. In this paper, we investigated radioactive tracer dilution (RTD) as a potential safeguards technique for application to the total mass measurement of LiCl–KCl–UCl3 salt used for uranium electrorefining, with a focus on the feasibility, uncertainty, and fission product effect of RTD for salt mass measurement. To this end, experimental-scale RTD tests (600–700 g of total mass) were initially carried out by adding 22Na tracer salt into LiCl–KCl salt containing 0, 5, and 28wt% radioactive salts from an electrorefiner (ER) for refining uranium. Upon the completion of the experimental-scale RTD tests, we performed a scale-up RTD test by directly adding 22Na tracer salts to the ER, which uses about 12 kg of LiCl–KCl–UCl3 salt during normal operation. This paper reports the main features of RTD for total mass measurement of molten salt and summarizes the results of the experimental-scale and scale-up RTD tests.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy, under DOE Idaho Operations Office contract number DE-AC07-05ID14517. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

Funding

This work was financially sponsored by DOE’s Materials Protection Accounting and Control Technologies (MPACT) program. The authors thank Skyler James, Tim Malewitz, and Steven Herrmann for their support and assistance in successfully completing experiments conducted in HFEF hot cell.

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  1. Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho, 83415, USA

    Guoping Cao, Brian Storms, Magen E. Coleman, Robert Hoover & Shelly Li

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  1. Guoping Cao
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  2. Brian Storms
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Correspondence to Guoping Cao.

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Cao, G., Storms, B., Coleman, M.E. et al. Development, feasibility, and uncertainty of radioactive 22Na tracer dilution and gamma spectroscopy for mass determination of molten salt for pyroprocessing spent nuclear fuels. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 723–735 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-08790-y

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