Thermodynamic and experimental approaches for an effective recovery of actinides from a spent LiCl-KCl salt

Thermodynamic calculations using the HSC code upon oxidation reactions of the actinide and rare earth metals in the molten cadmium-metals alloy phase and selective recovery experiments using CdO and CdCl2 oxidants were carried out in order to select an effective method for a recovery of the residual actinides in the spent salt resulting from an electrowinning step. It is expected that two kinds of oxidants can be use to reduce the content of the FPs in a cadmium alloy by a selective oxidation of the rare earth metals, but the rare earth chlorides formation using a CdCl2 oxidant in a salt phase would be useful from the viewpoint of an easy handling of the materials in a scaled-up equipmental operation. It could be concluded that a hybrid method consisting of a LCC electrolysis and a subsequent selective removal of FPs in a Cd-metals alloy reveals a feasibility as a candidate technique for a drawdown step