An Interactive Reverse-Engineering Cyclic Voltammetry for Uranium Electrochemical Studies in LiCI-KCI Eutectic Salt

摘要

Cyclic voltammetry is one of the most common electroanalytical methods for determining the thermodynamic and electrochemical behavior of a species in the eutectic molten salt. The diffusion coefficient, apparent standard potential, transfer coefficient, equilibrium potential, and other parameters can be determined through this method. This study focused on a development of an interactive reverse-engineering method by analyzing available uranium chloride data sets (1 to 10 wt%) in a LiCl-KCl molten salt at 773 K under different scan rates to help improve and provide robustness in detection analysis. A principle method and a computational code have been developed by using electrochemical fundamentals and coupling various variables, such as the diffusion coefficients, formal potentials, and process time duration. In addition, a graphical user interface (GUI) through the commercial software Matlab was created to provide a controllable environment for different users. Results provide plots of current, potential, and concentration of each species as a function of time under various determined conditions. The GUI also displays the reversible and irreversible peaks, in a very short run time (around 2 min), with an adequately selected time interval of approximately 0.08 s and an ability to calculate the concentration of each species (e.g., U~(4+) and U~(3+)) at any specified conditions.