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The pyrometallurgical process for recycling spent metal fuels from the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) involves electrorefining spent fuel in a molten salt electrolyte (LiCI-KCI-U/PuCI3) at 500°C. The total heavy metal chloride concentration in the salt will be about 2 mol %. At some point, the concentrations of alkali, alkaline earth, and rare earth fission products in the salt must be reduced to lower the amount of heat generated in the electrorefiner. The heavy metal concentration in the salt must be reduced before removing the fission products from the salt. The operation uses a lithium-cadmium alloy anode that is solid at 500°C, a solid mandrel cathode with a ceramic catch crucible below to collect heavy metal that falls off it, and a liquid cadmium cathode. The design criteria that had to be met by this equipment included the following: (1) control of the reduction rate by lithium, (2) good separation between heavy metal and rare earths, and (3) the capability to collect heavy metal and rare earths over a wide range of salt compositions. In tests conducted in an engineering-scale electrorefiner (10 kg uranium per cathode), good separation was achieved while removing uranium and rare earths from the salt. Only 13% of the rare earths was removed, while 99.9% of the uranium in the salt was removed; subsequently, the rare earths were also reduced to low concentrations. The uranium concentration in the salt was reduced to 0.05 ppm after uranium and rare earths were transferred from the salt to a solid mandrel cathode with a catch crucible. Rare earth concentrations in the salt were reduced to less than 0.01 wt % in these operations. Similar tests are planned to remove Plutonium from the salt in a laboratory-scale (100-300 g heavy metal) electrorefiner.

Method for Removal of Heavy Metal from Molten Salt