The electrochemical behavior was investigated during the electrolysis of nickel oxide in LiCl-Li2O salt mixture at 650℃ by changing several components. The focus of this work is to improve anode design and shroud design to increase current densities. The tested components were ceramic anode shroud porosity, porosity size, anode geometry, anode material, and metallic porous anode shroud. The goal of these experiments was to optimize and improve the reduction process. The highest contributors to higher current densities were anode shroud porosity and anode geometry.

A series of three bench-scale experiments was performed to investigate the conversion of sodium metal to sodium chloride via reactions with non-metal and metal chlorides. Specifically, batches of molten sodium metal were separately contacted with ammonium chloride and ferrous chloride to form sodium chloride in both cases along with iron in the latter case. Additional ferrous chloride was added to two of the three batches to form low melting point consolidated mixtures of sodium chloride and ferrous chloride, whereas consolidation of a sodium-chloride product was performed in a separate batch. Samples of the products were characterized via X-ray diffraction to identify attendant compounds. The reaction of sodium metal with metered ammonium chloride particulate feeds proceeded without reaction excursions and produced pure colorless sodium chloride. The reaction of sodium metal with ferrous chloride yielded occasional reaction excursions as evidenced by temperature spikes and fuming ferrous chloride, producing a dark salt-metal mixture. This investigation into a method for controlled conversion of sodium metal to sodium chloride is particularly applicable to sodium containing elevated levels of radioactivity—including bond sodium from nuclear fuels—in remote-handled inert-atmosphere environments.