Electrochemical study of actinide nitrides in LiCl-KCl eutectic melts

Nitride fuels for advanced fast breeder reactors, transmutation of minor actinides and Pu burning fast reactors have been contemplated because of their high thermal conductivity and high melting point. Research on the pyro-chemical reprocessing of nitride fuels has been conducted at the JAERI based on chlorine molten salt electro-refining to obtain fundamental data of redox reactions and pyro-chemistry for minor actinides such as NpN, AmN, CmN and their solid solutions. Experiments on anodic dissolution of UN, PuN and NpN in LiCl-KCl eutectic melts were made with cyclic voltamogram measurements and redox reactions of each actinide nitride were analyzed to show mechanisms of chlorine nitrides formation and establish optimum conditions of actinide metal recovery onto solid cathode. (T. Tanaka)