MOLTEN SALT VAPORIZATION DURING ELECTROLYTIC REDUCTION

The suppression of molten salt vaporization is one of the key technical issues in the electrolytic reduction process developed for recycling spent nuclear fuel from light-water reactors Since the Hertz-Langmuir relation previously applied to molten salt vaporization is valid only for vaporization into a vacuum, a diffusion model was derived to quantitatively assess the vaporization of LiCl, Li2O and Li from an electrolytic reducer operating under atmospheric pressure. Vaporization rates as a function of operation variables were calculated and shown to be in reasonable agreement with the experimental data obtained from thermogravimetry. KCI Citation Count: 8