Isotopes of alkali and alkaline earth metals (AM and AEM) are the main contributors to the heat load and the radiotoxicity of spent fuel (SF) . These components are separated from the SF and dissolved in a molten LiCl in an electrolytic reduction process. A mass transfer model is developed to describe the diffusion behavior of Cs, Sr, and Ba in the SF into the molten salt. The model is an analytical solution of Fick's second law of diffusion for a cylinder which is the shape of a cathode in the electrolytic reduction process. And the model is also applied to depict the concentration profile of the oxygen ion which is produced by the electrolysis of LiO. The regressed diffusion coefficients of the model correlating the experimentally measured data are evaluated to be greater in the order of Ba, Cs, and Sr for the metal ions and the diffusion of the oxygen ion is slower than the metal ions which implies that different mechanisms govern the diffusion of the metal ions and the oxygen ions in a molten LiCl.

Abstract   I. Introduction   II. Thermodynamic Analysis   III. Diffusion Model   IV. Experiment   V. Results and discussions   VI. Conclusion   References

• Byung Heung Park(한국원자력연구소) | 박병훙
• Dae-Seung Kang(한국원자력연구소) | 강대승
• Chung-Seok Seo(한국원자력연구소) | 서중석
• Seong-Won Park(한국원자력연구소) | 박성원