Thermal behavior of PrCl3 in an oxidizing condition

Pyrochemical processing of a spent nuclear fuel is now considered as one of the more promising options for an innovative nuclear fuel cycle. Electrorefining in molten salts is the main step in this process, where the actinides are separated from the lanthanides. During the electrorefining, certain amounts of waste salts containing lanthanide chlorides are generated. It is reported that the oxygen sparging method for a recovery of reusable salts from the waste salts is very effective for an economical as well as an environmental aspect. In this study, a thermo-gravimetric analysis of PrCl3 as one of the lanthanide chlorides was carried out by an injection of O2 gas in an oxidizing condition to investigate the thermal behavior of PrCl3. Based on the results, an oxidation of PrCl3 in LiCl-KCl molten salts was performed by sparging O2 gas with changing temperatures