About this Abstract |
Meeting |
MS&T22: Materials Science & Technology
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Symposium
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Emergent Materials under Extremes and Decisive In Situ Characterizations
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Presentation Title |
Electrochemical Deposition with Redox Replacement of Lanthanum with Uranium in Molten LiCl-KCl |
Author(s) |
Jeffrey Eakin, Daniel Molina, Haluk Beyenal, Cornelius Ivory |
On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Jeffrey Eakin |
Abstract Scope |
Pulsed electrodeposition with replacement (EDRR) is an electrochemical technique that has been used in aqueous media to recover precious metals from solutions that have an excess of less valuable metals. In this work, EDRR is explored for the first time in a molten salt medium for the electrochemical recovery of pure uranium in the presence of lanthanide fission products represented by lanthanum. In each EDRR cycle, after a short electrodeposition pulse the deposited lanthanum is spontaneously replaced by uranium at open circuit. After repeated cycles, pure uranium metal was obtained on a tungsten electrode immersed in LiCl-KCl melt that contained 1 wt.% lanthanum chloride – 0.15 wt.% uranium (IV) chloride. SEM-EDS analysis revealed uranium particles with an average size of 1 μm and well-defined geometrical shapes. This pulsed technique can be used to recover pure uranium at low concentrations after the electrowinning of uranium has been completed at constant potential. |