Recent developments at the cathode processor for spent fuel treatment.

Abstract

As part of the spent fuel treatment program at Argonne National Laboratory, a vacuum distillation process is being employed for the recovery of uranium following an electrorefining process. Distillation of a molten salt electrolyte, primarily consisting of a eutectic mixture of lithium and potassium chlorides with minor amounts of fission product chlorides, from uranium is achieved by a batch operation called cathode processing. Described in this paper are recent developments, both equipment and process-related, at the cathode processor during the treatment of blanket-type spent fuel. For the equipment developments, the installation of a new induction heating coil has produced significant improvements in equipment performance. The process developments include the elimination of a process step and the study of plutonium in the uranium product.