LABORATORY STUDIES OF IODINE BEHAVIOR IN THE EBR-II MELT REFINING PROCESS

摘要

Various laboratory studies have been conducted in an effort to predict the behavior of fission product iodine in the EBR-II melt refining process. Both highly irradiated EBR-II-type fuel and uranium-fissium alloys that had been spiked with iodine were used. When these materials were melt refined in lime-stabilized zirconia crucibles for one hour at 1400°C under an argon atmos¬phere, over 99% of the iodine was removed from the product ingot by volatilization. The volatilized iodine was collected primarily as Csl. These results confirmed earlier data obtained with unirradiated and low-activity-level fuel alloys, inasmuch as the iodine that had been volatilized during melt refining was not in the elemental form.nAfter the fuel had been melt refined a:nd the furnace had been cooled to equilibrium with the ambient temperature, the argon atmosphere in the furnace contained less than 0.02% of the iodine activity in the original charge.