2008•OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information)Requires access
Modeling of distribution and speciation of plutonium in the Urex extraction system
Alena Paulenová, Peter Tkáč, G.F. Vandegrift, John F. Krebs
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Abstract
The PUREX extraction process is used worldwide to recover uranium and plutonium from dissolved spent nuclear fuel using the tributylphosphate-nitric acid extraction system. In the recent decade, significant research progress was achieved with the aim to modify this system by addition of a salt-free agent to optimize stripping of plutonium from the tributylphosphate (TBP) extraction product (UREX). Experimental results on the extraction of Pu(IV) with and without acetohydroxamic acid in the HNO{sub 3}/TBP (30 vol %) were used for the development of a thermodynamic model of distribution and speciation of Pu(IV) in this separation process. Extraction constants for several sets of nitric acid, nitrate, and acetohydroxamic acid concentrations were used to model the obtained data. The extraction model AMUSE (Argonne Model for Universal Solvent Extraction) was employed in our calculations. (authors)