Monitoring the plutonium depletion in dissolution residues of a spent fuel solution using a surrogate and plutonium isotope ratio measurements

Alexandre Quemet (1) , Emilie Buravand (1) , Brigitte Catanese (1) , Patrick Huot (1) , Vincent Dalier (1) , Alexandre Ruas

1 DMRC - Département de recherche sur les procédés pour la mine et le recyclage du combustible

This study presents the development of an innovative experiment using a surrogate, for monitoring the depletion kinetics of plutonium dissolution residues in an irradiated fuel dissolution solution containing a high plutonium concentration. The surrogate, a (U,Pu)O2 compound, was synthesized from a plutonium having an isotopic composition different from the dissolution solution. This helps monitoring the plutonium residue depletion by TIMS measurements of the 240Pu/239Pu isotope ratio. Repeatability better than 83 ppm was achieved for the 240Pu/239Pu ratios in each aliquot of the dissolution profiles allowing qualitative and quantitative interpretation of the kinetic evolution that could not be reached by a conventional direct concentration determination.

Keywords: Dissolution; residues; plutonium; TIMS; isotope ratio; depletion kinetics

Domains: Analytical chemistry

Alexandre Quemet, Emilie Buravand, Brigitte Catanese, Patrick Huot, Vincent Dalier, et al.. Monitoring the plutonium depletion in dissolution residues of a spent fuel solution using a surrogate and plutonium isotope ratio measurements. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07311-5. ⟨10.1007/s10967-020-07311-5⟩. ⟨cea-02932076⟩