Neptunium Recovery and Purification at Hanford

From American Chemical Society Production Technology of Np-237 and Pu- 238, Denver, Jan. 1964. Neptunium is routinely recovered from irradiated fuel elements at Hanford's two main separation plants. Initial development tests were started in the Purex plant in 1958, then in the Redox plant in 1959, and recently culminated in the installation of new production systems in both plants for improved recoveries. Both recovery flowsheets employ solvent extraction techniques based on the relative extractability of neptunium-VI. The neptunium is co-extracted with uranium and plutonium in the plants' first extraction cycles and then partitioned and decontaminated in separate neptanium cycles. Excellent decontamination from fission products is achieved without interfering with mamline uranium and plutonium production. Recovered neptunium is purified by anion exchange and shipped offsite for subsequent irradiation to plutonaim-238. Overall separation factors of uranium and fission products from neptunium are greater than 10/sup 7/ and 10/sup 10/ respectively. (auth)