Continuous-Operation Test at Engineering Scale Uranium Crystallizer System

Uranium crystallization based on solubility difference is one of the remarkable technologies which can provide simple process to separate uranium in nitric acid solution since the process is mainly controlled by temperature and concentration of solute ions. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation (MMC) are developing the crystallization process for elemental technology of FBR fuel reprocessing.[1–3] The uranium (U) crystallization process is a key technology for New Extraction System for TRU Recovery (NEXT) process that was evaluated as the most promising process for future FBR reprocessing.[4–6] We had developed an innovative crystallizer and carried out several fundamental investigations. On the basis of the results, we fabricated an engineering-scale crystallizer and have carried out continuous operation test to investigate the stability of the equipment at steady and non-steady state conditions by using depleted uranium. As for simulating typical failure events in the crystallizer, crystal accumulation and crystal blockage were occurred intentionally, and monitoring method and resume procedure were tried and selected in this work. As the test results, no significant phenomenon was observed in the steady state test. And in the non-steady state test, process fluctuation could be detected by monitoring of screw torque and liquid level in the crystallizer, and all failure events are proven to be recovered by appropriate resumed procedures.