The Fate of Nitrogen Upon Reprocessing of Nitride Fuels

The aim was to investigate the dissolution behaviour of nitride fuels in nitric acid. One problem in employing nitrides as fuels is the formation of radiotoxic exp 14 C upon irradiation of natural nitrogen. The use of exp 15 N-enriched fuels would avoid this drawback. Using exp 15 N-enriched uranium...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of nuclear materials 1991-11, Vol.188 (1), p.244-248
Main Authors: Hadibi-Olschewski, N, Glatz, J-P, Bokelund, H, Leroy, M J-F
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The aim was to investigate the dissolution behaviour of nitride fuels in nitric acid. One problem in employing nitrides as fuels is the formation of radiotoxic exp 14 C upon irradiation of natural nitrogen. The use of exp 15 N-enriched fuels would avoid this drawback. Using exp 15 N-enriched uranium nitrides or exp 15 N-enriched nitric acid, two methods were developed to measure the influence of the dissolution parameters, nitric acid temperature and concentration, on the exp 15 N/ exp 14 N ratios of the N, nitrogen oxides and ammonium ions utilizing a coupled gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. The first dissolution step is the oxidation of UN with HNO sub 3 to form NH exp + sub 4 and HNO sub 2 , and HNO sub 2 has a catalytic role in the dissolution to form other products. Ammonium is the only species which contains N with the same isotopic composition as the uranium nitride.
ISSN:0022-3115