Immobilization and Recovery of Thorium, A Neptunium Surrogate, using Phase-Separated Glasses

Abstract

The Savannah River Site has the majority of the United States' supply of neptunium currently stored in an acid solution in one of their canyon facilities. A program is being developed that could be utilized to ship this material, as glass, to Oak Ridge National Laboratory where the Np could be leached from the glass, purified by ion exchange and made into target material for the production of Pu-238. Ion exchange purification dictates no material be in the leachate making the isolation of the Np difficult. We have developed a process using thorium as a surrogate for Np that could immobilize the Np into a soda borosilicate glass for shipment. To achieve recovery of the Np, the glass can be phase separated prior to leaching with nitric acid. Phase separation would produces a Np-rich sodium-borate phase and a Si-rich phase similar to a Vycor® glass. The nitric acid selectively attacks the sodium-borate phase allowing high Np recovery in a solution that contains only sodium and boron. These can be easily separated from Np by ion exchange. Essentially all of the silicon which would interfere with ion exchange by precipitation is retained in the Vycor®-type phase. This technology may also be applied to other actinides stored in relatively pure solutions.

This paper will report the optimization of variables for maximizing Th (a Np surrogate) recovery while minimizing Si release. Th solubility in glass, heat treatment conditions and leaching parameters will be discussed. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) data will be included to show phase separation after heat treatment.