Effect of the UO(2) form on the electrochemical reduction rate in a LiCl-Li(2)O molten salt

Electrochemical reductions of various UO(2) forms were investigated in a molten LiCl-Li(2)O electrolyte. The study focused on the influence of their sizes and densities on the reduction rate by running experiments with eight UO(2) forms. They can be classified into porous and dense forms. The porous forms are one granule and four porous pellets with different densities (55%, 60%, 70% and 80%), all of which were fabricated in our laboratory. The dense forms were prepared by crushing dense pellets, and these were similar in size to the porous pellets and the granules. Systematic comparisons of the reduction rate among the tested UO(2) forms revealed that a lower density and smaller size of UO(2) led to a faster reduction rate. Particularly, attention was focused on the observation that the size of the UO(2) provides more dominant effect on the reduction rate than the density.