Electrochemical behaviors of uranium and plutonium at simultaneous recoveries into liquid cadmium cathodes

Experiments were conducted on simultaneous recovery of uranium and plutonium electrochemically into laboratory scale liquid, cadmium cathodes (LCCs) at different U/Pu ratios in the salt phase, and the influence of the salt composition on the recovered amounts of uranium and plutonium, the morphologies of uranium and plutonium in the LCC, and the behavior of americium, which is present as a decay product of plutonium-241, were examined. As a result, it was shown that there is a threshold in the U/Pu ratio in the salt phase between 1/4.3 and 1/1.73 for the successful simultaneous recovery of uranium and plutonium up to 10 wt% in the LCC at high current efficiencies. In the LCC, uranium and, plutonium existed in the forms of intermetallic compounds, (U, Pu)Cd-6 and (U, Pu)Cd-11, and also pure uranium metal. It was also revealed that americium associates with plutonium according to the separation factor during the LCC operation. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.