| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2024 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Materials and Chemistry for Molten Salt Systems
|
| Presentation Title |
Electrorefiner Speciation and Phase Model for Prediction of Operation Lifetime |
| Author(s) |
Jacob Yingling, Tae-Sic Yoo, Toni Y Karlsson, Guy L Fredrickson |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Jacob Yingling |
| Abstract Scope |
The Mk IV electrorefiner (ER) at Idaho National Laboratory has recovered uranium metal from used nuclear fuels for 27 years. Thus, large quantities of fission product chlorides more electropositive than uranium have accumulated in the ER salt, increasing the complexity of phase equilibria and salt speciation. Importantly, the melt temperature of the salt increases with ER operation and will ultimately exceed design limits without intervention. Methods to remove fission products from molten chloride salt are known, but their implementation is not intended in the Mk IV ER. In this work, historical ER composition and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) are utilized to develop coupled speciation and chloride salt solution thermochemistry models, which enable accurate present-day analysis of ER salt as well as forecast its future disposition. The developed thermochemical models are applicable to chloride salts generally and have been made available in the Molten Salt Thermal Properties Database – Thermochemical. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Phase Transformations, Modeling and Simulation |