Development of an Innovative Electrorefiner for High Uranium Recovery Rate from Metal Fast Reactor Fuels

To increase the uranium recovery rate of molten salt electrorefining step in pyrometallurgical reprocessing of metallic fast reactor fuels, tests were carried out using electrorefiners equipped with mechanisms for scraping cathode deposits. After the modifications in the design of the anode basket and scraper mechanism, no stalling of the anode and scraper rotation due to interference by cathode deposits occurred. Under the condition that codissolution of zirconium and uranium was allowed in order to obtain maximum throughput, a current of 400-450A was maintained until 82% of the initially loaded uranium was recovered. The uranium recovery rate for the same duration reached 789 g U/h (32.9 g U/h.L per electrode volume). On the assumption that an electrorefiner operates for 20 h/d and 200 d/y in an actual pyrometallugical reprocessing facility, this result corresponds to a uranium recovery rate of 3.16 t U/y using only one electrode assembly of about 30 cm diameter, which should be a sufficiently high performance for practical use. From these results, the engineering feasibility of uranium recovery using an electrorefiner with cathode deposit scraper mechanism has been demonstrated.