A Computational Model of the Mark-IV Electrorefiner: Phase I—Fuel Basket/Salt Interface

Abstract

Spent driver fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II is currently being treated in the Mark-IV electrorefiner in the Fuel Conditioning Facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The modeling approach to be presented here has been developed to help understand the effect of different parameters on the dynamics of this system. The first phase of this new modeling approach focuses on the fuel basket/salt interface involving the transport of various species found in the driver fuels (e.g., uranium and zirconium). This approach minimizes the guessed parameters to only one, the exchange current density (i0). U3+ and Zr4+ were the only species used for the current study. The result reveals that most of the total cell current is used for the oxidation of uranium, with little being used by zirconium. The dimensionless approach shows that the total potential is a strong function of i0 and a weak function of wt % of uranium in the salt system for initiation processes.