Solvent Extraction in Production and Processing of Uranium and Thorium

Abstract Solvent extraction plays a vital role in the production and processing of uranium and thorium for use as fuels in the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The development of solvent extraction technology in the nuclear field in the last five decades has contributed to advances in the non-nuclear hydrometallurgy. In turn the large scale applications in the field of base metals such as copper have led to development of new equipment and techniques as well as better understanding of the process chemistry and hydrodynamics. Advances in the field of solvent extraction of relevance to the nuclear fuels, are reviewed in this paper. The significant results from the research and development work in India are also included. Various aspects discussed include chemistry of process flowsheets for uranium and thorium recovery and refining including recent improvements, diluents for use in the processes, thermal effects in extraction, process instrumentation including on-line measurements, solvent loss by entrainment, purification of feed streams prior to extraction, solvent-in-pulp processing, separation of uranium and thorium, binary ex-tractants and application of solvent extraction in uranium enrichment.

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