Electro-deposition behavior of minor actinides with liquid cadmium cathodes

Transuranic elements have been simultaneously electro-deposited on a liquid cadmium cathode and decontaminated from fission products dissolved in molten 3LiCl-2KCl in the electrorefining of a pyrochemical reprocessing. Some lab-scale electrolysis experiments were carried out using uranium, plutonium and minor actinide elements in order to evaluate the performance of liquid cadmium cathodes. The results of several experiment confirmed that neptunium, americium and curium could be recovered together with Pu by the liquid cadmium cathodes through electrolysis operation. The separation factors of minor actinide vs. Pu were estimated to be about 0.5 to 2.5 and those of rare earth element vs. total actinides 18 to 32.