Sustainable nuclear energy production requires significant changes in the way nuclear fuel is processed, to achieve greater efficiency and reductions in waste sent to repositories, including the elimination of transuranics. Ionic liquids (ILs, or low-melting salts) can enable technologies to achieve these goals due to their unusual physical properties that can be controlled by design as needed, and process safety advantages compared to ordinary solvents. Our team explores the use of ionic liquids for nuclear separations processes with particular concern for their performance under ionizing radiation as found under operating conditions. We seek to develop efficient separation schemes based on the unusual and useful properties of ionic liquids, while taking into consideration how radiolysis interferes with separations chemistry and seeking to prevent or mitigate such interference through informed selection of ionic liquid components. We will present examples of ionic liquid-based separations systems for various aspects of used fuel recycling and demonstrate how radiation resistance can be designed into ionic liquids for separations. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences under contracts DE-SC0012704 (BNL and UWM), DE-AC02-06CH11357 (ANL) and DE-AC05-0096OR22725 (ORNL).

Progress in ionic liquids for advanced nuclear separations

251st National Meeting (2016)

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