Separation of Lanthanides and Actinides in a Chloride Melt - Liquid Metal System: The Effect of Phase Composition

Abstract

Separation of lanthanides and actinides can be achieved in a “molten chloride – liquid metal” system. Here, the effect of temperature, cationic composition of the alkali chloride based melts, and composition of the liquid metal on the separation factor are considered, and separation of neodymium and uranium is studied as an example. Gallium, indium, aluminum, tin and their mixtures of various compositions were chosen as low melting metals. Possible separation coefficients were calculated on the basis of thermodynamic and electrochemical properties of uranium and neodymium. To confirm the results of calculations, experiments on separating Nd and U were conducted. The experiments were performed under various conditions and the experimentally achieved separation factors compared with the theoretical expectations.