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Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Donald J. Reif
Nuclear Technology | Volume 83 | Number 2 | November 1988 | Pages 190-196
Technical Paper | Chemical Processing | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34160
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Solvent extraction processes are used to recover usable nuclear materials from unwanted fission products at the Savannah River Plant. During use, the tri-n-butyl phosphate in an n-paraffm hydrocarbon solvent is degraded due to hydrolysis and radiolysis, forming materials that influence product losses, product decontamination, and separation efficiencies. The solvent is recycled after cleaning with a sodium carbonate solution. Savannah River Laboratory work has shown that carbonate washing does not remove more solvent-soluble binding ligands (formed by solvent degradation), which extract fission products into the solvent. Activated alumina treatment of carbonate-washed solvent removes binding ligands and significantly improves recycled solvent performance. A laboratory-developed, side-stream-activated alumina process was scaled up to clean 16500 gal of first-cycle solvent. The improved solvent fission product rejection returned the Savannah River Plant Canyon process to normal productivity and reduced process salt waste by increasing the solvent wash solution use-life.