Application of the rotating cylinder electrode in molten LiCl-KCl eutectic containing uranium(III)- and magnesium(II)-chloride

摘要

The application of the rotating cylinder electrode (RCE) to molten LiCI-KCl eutectic mixtures for electroanalytical measurements is presented. This enabled the measurement of the limiting current which was observed to follow a linear trend with the rotational rate raised to 0.64-0.65 power on average, which closely agrees with existing RCE mass-transfer correlations. This is the first publication of electroanalytical RCE measurements in LiCI-KCl eutectic based molten salt mixtures, to our knowledge. These measurements were made in mixtures of molten LiCl-KCl eutectic containing UCl3 and MgCl2. Kinetic parameters were calculated for Mg2+ in LiCl-KCl eutectic. The exchange current density (i(0)) of Mg2+ deposition varied with mole fraction (x) according to io(A cm(-2)) = 1.64x(0.689). The parameters from RCE measurements were also applied in an electrochemical co-deposition model entitled DREP to detect and predict the deposition rate of U and Mg. DREP succeeded in detecting the co-deposition of U and Mg, even when Mg constituted less than 0.5 wt% of the deposit. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.