Augmentation of hot cell facility for pyro-process of irradiated metal fuels

Abstract

Hot cells with an inert atmosphere are used for handling air-sensitive, hygroscopic, and radioactive materials like mixed carbide fuels and for pyro-processing metallic fuels. Pyro-processing of spent metal fuels was based on the electrochemical recovery of actinides in high-temperature molten salts (LiCl-KCl eutectic with 58.5 mol.% LiCl). To demonstrate the remote operation feasibility of the electro-refining process of irradiated U-6 wt% Zr inside hot cells and also to study the process parameters, a pilot scale (∼100 g) pyro-process facility was set up in one of our hot cells. For this purpose, the existing hot cell facility was augmented with necessary modifications and customized to the experimental needs. This paper discusses in detail the augmentation works carried out on the existing facility to facilitate the remote operation of electro-refining of irradiated metallic fuels.