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Removal of rare earth fission products from LiCl–KCl molten salt by sulfide precipitation

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Abstract

The precipitation reaction of rare earth was investigated by potassium sulfide (K2S), or sodium sulfide hydrate (Na2S·xH2O) in LiCl–KCl melts. The characteristics of precipitates were determined and the removal ratios of rare earth were compared under different conditions. For both precipitants, the rare earth removal ratios were up to 90%. Rare earth sulfides were mainly observed in K2S precipitation reaction, while some oxysulfide species were identified for Na2S·xH2O, which showed the synergistic effect of S and O on the removal efficiency. The research results suggested that sulfide precipitation was feasible to separate rare earth products from waste salts.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21771188), the Strategic Priority Program and Frontier Science Key Program (Grant Nos. XDA02030000 and QYZDY-SSWJSC016) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We are grateful to Dr Lu Xu for his pertinent suggestion, and appreciate his encouragement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

    Yaxin Qu, Ming Cheng, Yan Luo, Yongsheng Niu, Haiying Fu & Qiang Dou

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yaxin Qu, Ming Cheng, Haiying Fu & Qiang Dou

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  1. Yaxin Qu
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  2. Ming Cheng
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  3. Yan Luo
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Correspondence to Yongsheng Niu or Haiying Fu.

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Qu, Y., Cheng, M., Luo, Y. et al. Removal of rare earth fission products from LiCl–KCl molten salt by sulfide precipitation. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 331, 4011–4019 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-022-08436-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-022-08436-5

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