Applications of molten salts in plutonium processing

Plutonium is efficiently recovered from scrap at Los Alamos by a series of chemical reactions and separations conducted at temperatures ranging from 700 to 9000C. These processes usually employ a molten salt or salt eutectic as a heat sink and/or reaction medium. Salts for these operations were selected early in the development cycle. The selection criteria are being reevaluated. In this article we describe the processes now in use at Los Alamos and our studies of alternate salts and eutectics