Chorlide alternatives for recovering plutonium in a form suitable for long term storage

Currently there is a large inventory of pyrochemical residues owned by DOE through out the weapons complex. These residues consist of chloride based salts as well as magnesium oxide crucibles. The preferred processing method for these residues involves the use of hydrochloric acid irrespective of whether the objective is purification of the plutonium or conversion of the plutonium into a form suitable for long term storage. Recent work at Los Alamos National Laboratory has led to the recovery of plutonium from acidic chloride process solutions by neutralization with magnesium hydroxide prior to discarding the filtrate as a liquid waste. Process development activities have shown that the change from the traditional precipitation with potassium hydroxide to magnesium hydroxide offers the following advantages: reduction of filtrate volume, reduction in precipitate volume, reduction in the radioactivity level, reduction in filtration time due to improved particle characteristics, reduction in reagent usage by 50%, and reduction in the number and volume of items that must be reprocessed or sent to storage. Neutralization of actinide bearing solutions with either magneisum hydroxide or magnesium oxide in conjunction with other chloride operations such as the purification processes of ion exchange or solvent extraction, or precipitation methods of oxalate or hydroxide addition will result in the above mentioned process improvements