Abstract
:Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been tasked to produce 120 kg of plutonium as highly purified PuO2 for the European Mixed Oxide (MOX) Lead Test Assembly managed by Duke, COGEMA, Stone & Webster (DCS). To meet stringent and challenging technical requirements for PuO2 production, the LANL aqueous polishing team recently established consistency in generating quality material from weapons-grade PuO2. Polishing was required to remove undesirable quantities of trace-metal impurities, particularly gallium, and to produce a material with appropriate powder characteristics, such as particle size and surface area. The process flow sheet for PuO2 polishing was based on aqueous purification and included the unit operations of dissolution, ion exchange, oxalate precipitation, and calcination.
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