Electrochemical oxidation of dissolved tri-n-butyl phosphate in the raffinate streams of PUREX process

Electrochemical oxidation is a potential technique for the destruction of organic compounds present in aqueous solution. The destruction of dissolved Tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) in nitric acid medium without any electrochemical mediator was carried out in the present study. A laboratory scale electrochemical oxidation cell equipped with platinum gauze electrodes were used as cathode and anode. Experiments were conducted with and without fission products in 4M nitric acid. It was observed from experimental data that time taken to destroy almost all the dissolved TBP in solution without any fission products at ambient temperature found to be about two, whereas it takes seven hours to completely destroy TBP in the simulated waste solution containing various fission products. Rate of destruction of dissolved TBP was estimated from the batch experimental data