Common molten salt applications, such as electrorefiners and MSR processing streams, often process highly concentrated lanthanide and/or actinide systems. Typical electroanalytical measurement techniques such as cyclic voltammetry and normal-pulse voltammetry introduce significant error when measuring analytes more concentrated than 10 wt%. This error is due to the reliance of these techniques on the assumption of dilute species in the associated theories. Coulometry makes no assumptions about mass transfer, but is generally inadvisable because of the exorbitant time needed to make such measurements in the bulk solution. Thin-layer electrodes (TLEs) hold a microliter or sub-microliter volume of solution within 100 micrometers of an electrode's surface. With a TLE, coulometry can be preformed extremely quickly, and other electranalytical measurements can be made on the isolated solution before mass transfer brings an appreciable amount of ions to the electrode surface from the bulk solution. These electrodes can also be used for low-concentration electroanalytical measurements using a simple set of relations. A custom TLE for molten chloride salt use has been constructed. Preliminary results indicate that this electrode will be able to measure much higher concentrations than a standard electrochemical concentration measurement system in a matter of minutes.

High-concentration electroanalytical measurements using a thin-layer electrode in molten chloride salts

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