The new approach offers a way of separating out different components of nuclear waste. The one-step chemical reaction, which appears in the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, results in the formation of crystals containing all of the leftover nuclear fuel elements distributed uniformly. To address the unmet needs of nuclear waste recycling, the researchers investigated if there was a simple chemical reaction that could separate all the desirable used nuclear fuel chemical elements together.
From earlier studies, the researchers knew that at room temperature, uranium forms crystals in strong nitric acid. Within these crystals, uranium atoms are arranged in a unique profile—a central uranium atom is sandwiched between two oxygen atoms on either side and share six electrons with each oxygen atom.
The researchers hypothesized that if plutonium, neptunium and americium assumed a similar bonding structure with oxygen as uranium, then these elements would integrate themselves into the uranium crystal. For their experiments, they prepared a surrogate solution of uranium, plutonium, neptunium, and americium in highly concentrated nitric acid at 60-90 degrees Celsius to mimic dissolving of a real fuel rod in the strong acid. They found when the solution reached room temperature, as predicted, that uranium, neptunium, plutonium, and americium separated from the solution together, uniformly distributing themselves within the crystals.
Source: Futurity
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