An assessment of multistage counter current extraction of TRU from spent molten salt into liquid metal II. Effect of stage efficiency, scrub stage, and TRU concentration

Calculation procedures have been developed to evaluate the performance of the multistage counter current extraction of transuranics (TRU) from spent molten salt into liquid metal, taking into account stage efficiency and also the scrub stage. The following results, which supplement previous papers, were derived using these procedures. When Cd is used as the liquid metal and the stage efficiency is assumed to be 100%, at least four stages are necessary to recover 99% of TRU from the salt with a decontamination factor (DF) higher than five. A stage efficiency of the extraction better than 80% is desirable for a practical application. The scrub stage is not very effective in improving the DF when the total number of extractions is less than five. The DF slightly increases with higher TRU concentration in the salt since the accompanying lanthanide FP extracted into the Cd in the later stages works as a mild reducing agent in the earlier stages. Although the extraction process has high separation capability, it is very difficult to separate Np, Am, or Cm from Pu due to their similar separation factors. Therefore, the extraction process has inherent proliferation resistance.