Uranium/technetium separation for the UREX process - Synthesis and characterization of solid reprocessing forms

F. Poineau, J. Du Mazaubrun, D. Ford, J. Fortner, J. Kropf, G. W.C. Silva, N. Smith, K. Long, G. Jarvinen, K. Czerwinski

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the context of the demonstration of the UREX (uranium extraction) process, a separation of uranium and technetium using an anion exchange resin was performed on a simulant solution containing 98.95 g/L of 238U and 130.2 mg/L of 99Tc. After sorption on the resin, TcO 4- was eluted with NH4OH, the eluting stream was treated, and the technetium converted to Tc metal (yield = 52.5%). The purity of the compound was analyzed: it contains less than 23.8 μg of 238U per gram of 99Tc. Tc metal was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy; EXAFS analysis clearly confirms the hexagonal structure of the metal obtained after treatment. Uranium was converted to ammonium diuranate and to U 3O8 in a yield of 88.2%, analysis indicates that the compound contains less than 0.16 μg of 99Tc per gram of ammonium diuaranate.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)527-533
Number of pages7
JournalRadiochimica Acta
Volume96
Issue number9-11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Acknowledgment. The authors wish to thank the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Program of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy for support of this work. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Keywords

  • Separation
  • Technetium
  • UREX
  • Uranium

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