Purification of Aqueous Plutonium Chloride Solutions Via Precipitation and Washing

摘要

Pyrochemical operations at Los Alamos Plutonium Facility (TA-55) use high-temperature melts of calcium chloride for the reduction of plutonium oxide to plutonium metal and high-temperature combined melts of sodium chloride and potassium chloride mixtures for the electrorefining purification of plutonium metal. The residual plutonium and americium are recovered from these salts by dissolution in concentrated hydrochloric acid followed by either solvent extraction or ion exchange for isolation and ultimately converted to oxide after precipitation with oxalic acid. Figure 1 illustrates the current aqueous chloride flow sheet used for plutonium processing at TA-55.