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Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received January 10, 2016
Accepted March 10, 2016

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Electrolytic reduction rate of porous UO2 pellets

Min Ku Jeon^{1 2†} Eun-Young Choi^{1 3} Sung-Wook Kim^{1 2} Sang-Kwon Lee^{1 3} Hyun Woo Kang^{1 3} Sun Seok Hong^{1 3} Jeong Lee^{1 3} Jin-Mok Hur^{1 3} Sang-Chae Jeon^{1 3} Ju Ho Lee^{1 3} Yung-Zun Cho^{1 2} Do-Hee Ahn^{1 2}

¹Nuclear Fuel Cycle Process Development Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 989-111 Daedeok-daero, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34059, Korea ²Department of Quantum Energy Chemical Engineering, University of Science and Technology, 217 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34113, Korea ³, Korea

minku@kaeri.re.kr

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, July 2016, 33(7), 2235-2239(5), 10.1007/s11814-016-0077-7

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Abstract

The electrolytic reduction rate of porous UO2 pellets in a LiCl salt was investigated for various applied charges. The degree of reduction (α) value was evaluated from the ratios of cross-sectional areas of the reduced and oxide parts. An analysis of the experimental results revealed that the first-order reaction model is the best geometry function to describe the reduction reaction. An electrolytic reduction rate equation was proposed using the first-order model, although it was available in a limited region of (0≤α≤0.56). A power law based reaction rate equation was also suggested for the whole range of α, and the reaction time for a complete reduction, estimated using the power law equation, was confirmed through the experimental results. Changes in the Li-Li2O concentration around the reduced pellets for various applied charges were also measured, which increased up to 23 wt% with increasing α.

Keywords

Electrolytic Reduction Reaction Rate Pyroprocessing Uranium Dioxide Reaction Model