Chemical investigations related to treatment of burnt nuclear fuel

The basic aim of this thesis is to develop a chromatographic flow sheet to recover and plutonium as well as to get rid of most fission products specially zirconium from spent fuel. To achieve these objectives, detailed extraction chromatographic investigations were carried out using U o22+ U4+ (as representative for Pu) and Zr in nitric acid solution. Both static and dynamic studies were performed and flow sheet was developed and tested. This thesis is presented in three main chapters. The first chapter,the introduction, includes some aspects on different chemical methods and techniques used for processing of burnt nuclear fuel. It is also includes a brief literature survey related to extraction chromatographic methods developed for uranium and plutonium separation from fission products from irradiated uranium fuel. The second chapter, the experimental, includes the different materials employed, the methods utilized and the equipment used. Detailed description for the column chromatographic system developed in this work. The bases of the calculation of the different parameters related to the chromatographic studies carried out also included