Separation of metallic residues from the dissolution of a high-burnup BWR fuel using nitrogen trifluoride
Nitrogen trifluoride (NF 3 ) was used to fluorinate the metallic residue from the dissolution of a high burnup, boiling water reactor fuel (~70 MWd/kgU). The metallic residue included the noble metal phase (containing ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, technetium, and molybdenum), and smaller amounts of zirconium, selenium, tellurium, and silver. Exposing the noble metal phase to 10% NF 3 in argon between 400 and 550°C, removed molybdenum and technetium near 400°C as their volatile fluorides, and ruthenium near 500C as its volatile fluoride. The events were thermally and temporally distinct and the conditions specified are a recipe to separate these transition metals from each other and from the noble metal phase nonvolatile residue. Depletion of the volatile fluorides resulted in substantial exothermicity. Thermal excursion behavior was recorded under non-adiabatic, isothermal conditions that typically minimize heat release. Physical characterization of the metallic noble phase and its thermal behavior are consistent with high kinetic velocity reactions encouraged by the nanoparticulate phase or perhaps catalytic influences of the mixed platinum metals with nearly pure phase structure. Post-fluorination, only two phases were present in the residual nonvolatile fraction. These were identified as a nano-crystalline, metallic palladium cubic phase and a hexagonal rhodium trifluoride (RhF 3 ) phase. The two phases were distinct as the sub-µm crystallites of metallic palladium were in contrast to the RhF 3 phase, which grew from the parent nano-crystalline noble-metal phase during fluorination, to acicular crystals exceeding 20-µm in length.