Electrochemical analysis of rare earth constituents in uranium/plutonium collected by a liquid cadmium cathode

In this study, a series of bench scale LCC tests were performed in a molten salt electrolyte laden with real fission products. The salt composition is shown in Table 1. The concentration of total REs in the salt was 1.9 wt%. The anode material for the tests were uranium and plutonium metal. The experiments were performed by controlled LCC voltage. It was found that REs were collected into the cadmium phase together with U, Pu, Np-237, and Am-241. The quantities of REs collected by the LCC directly correlated with the controlled LCC voltages. It appears that the LCC voltage has a stronger impact on the amount of rare earth elements transferred into the liquid Cd phase compared to those of the actinides