Electrorefining characteristics of uranium by using a graphite cathode

Electrorefining experiments were successfully carried out in LiCl-KCl eutectic molten salt with a graphite cathode. It was found that the formation of Uranium-Graphite intercalation compound(U-GIC) helped the self-scraping mechanism of the uranium dendrite and the efficiency of the electrorefiner increased due to an elimination of the stripping step. The contaminations of the uranium deposit by rare earth elements was negligible while about 300 ppm of carbon was observed. The carbon contamination is believed to be eliminated by further purification by yttrium reaction. The morphology characteristics of the recovered U deposit was compared to that of steel cathode. These are only qualitative preliminary experimental results, but we believe that further research on this type of activity change the direction of the electrorefining research on spent nuclear fuel