Electrical conductivities of UCl₃-LiCl-KCl molten salts measured by using a short time interval and multiple-potential step technique

We have developed a new electrical conductivity measurement system installed inside a glove box, which is controlled by a custom-made software based on the LabView program. Uranium trichloride (UCl₃) is one of the most important components in the pyrochemical process because the nuclear spent fuel comprises mainly uranium. The molten salt in the process usually contains up to ⁓9wt% of UCl₃ so that the physical properties of the molten salt containing a large quantities of UCl₃ are very important in the process. In this work, we have measured and reported the electrical conductivities of the high temperature molten salts containing UCl3 and lanthanide trichlorides. In the present work, the electrical conductivity measurement technique not only determine the electrical conductivities of LiCl-KCl molten salts containing uranium and lanthanide elements but also show a potential to measure phase transition temperatures of the multi-component molten salts