Assessment on Recovery of Cesium, Strontium, and Barium From Eutectic LiCl-KCl Salt With Liquid Bismuth System

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study provides an assessment on a proposed method for separation of cesium, strontium, and barium using electrochemical reduction at a liquid bismuth cathode in LiCl-KCl eutectic salt, investigated via cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDS). CV studies were performed at temperatures of 723-823 K and concentrations of the target species up to 4.0wt%. Redox reactions occurring during potential sweeps were observed. Concentration of BaCl2 in the salt did not seem to influence the diffusivity in the studied concentration range up to 4.0wt%. The presence of strontium in the system affected the redox reaction of lithium; however, there were no distinguishable redox peaks that could be measured. Impedance spectra obtained from EIS methods were used to calculate the exchange current densities of the electroactive active redox couple at the bismuth cathode. Results show the rate-controlling step in deposition to be the mass transport of Cs+ ions from the bulk salt to the cathode surface layer. Results from SEM-EDS suggest that Cs-Bi and Sr-Bi intermetallics from LiCl-KCl salt are not thermodynamically favorable.