PNNL

Abstract

This paper presents results of our continuing investigation on the use of nitrogen trifluoride as a fluorination or fluorination/oxidation agent for separating valuable constituents from used nuclear fuels by exploiting the different volatilities of the constituent fission product and actinide fluorides. This article focuses on fission products that do not have volatile fluorides or oxyfluorides at expected operations temperatures. Our thermodynamic calculations show that nitrogen trifluoride has the potential to completely fluorinate fission product oxides to their fluorides. Simultaneous thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses show that the oxides of cobalt, zirconium, and the lanthanides are fluorinated but do not form volatile fluorides when treated with nitrogen trifluoride at temperatures up to 550°C. Our studies of gadolinium-doped commercial nuclear fuel indicate that nitrogen trifluoride can extract uranium from the non-volatile gadolinium.