Deposition behavior of UO2 and noble-metal elements in oxide-electrowinning reprocessing

As a candidate process for future reprocessing technology of nuclear spent fuel, oxide-electrowinning method has been studied. In this method, the uranium is collected on the cathode in the form of UO2 by electrolysis in the molten chloride. Thereby, the noble metal (NM) elements accompany the uranium deposition, because of very close redox potential between NM elements and UO2. To clarify the electrolysis behavior of the uranium and NM elements in the low-current-density electrolysis, the laboratory scale experiments were performed under various conditions of cathode current density and solutes concentration in the chloride melt, and the separation efficiency and the morphology of the deposition were investigated. It was found that the separation of Pd from uranium was more difficult than that of Rh. The presence of U4+ greatly influenced current efficiency of the electrolysis process.