Chlorination of uranium metal to uranium trichloride using ammonium chloride

Given that the most feasible option for fabricating chloride-based molten salt fuel for molten-salt reactors (MSRs) is to use uranium/transuranic metals produced by pyroprocessing technology, an experimental study was performed to synthesize UCl3. Uranium metal and NH4Cl were loaded in an airtight reactor, which was heated in a furnace. Quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that the product was UCl3 with a purity ranging from 92.5 to 100.8%. The efficiency of the chlorination reaction in this work surpasses that of the previously published method. These results will be useful for producing MSR fuel candidates and understanding their properties.