An advanced purex process based on salt-free reductants

Abstract An advanced plutonium and uranium recovery process has been established based on two organic reductants, N,N-dimethylhydroxylamine (DMHAN) and methylhydrazine (MH), as U/Pu separation reagents. This Advanced Purex process based on Organic Reductants (APOR) is composed of three cycles, including U/Pu co-decontamination/separation cycle, uranium purification cycle and plutonium purification cycle. Using DMHAN and MH as plutonium stripping reagents in the U/Pu co-decontamination/separation cycle and plutonium purification cycle, the APOR process exhibits high performance with following highlights: 1) the process is much simpler because of the elimination of Tc scrubbing operation and the supplement extraction operation, 2) high efficiency of U/Pu separation can be achieved in the first cycle, 3) plutonium product solution of high concentration can be obtained in the Pu purification cycle with a simple extraction operation instead of circumfluent extraction or evaporation of the plutonium solution.