Pyrochemical Study on Recovery of Platinum Group Elements

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The recovery of platinum group elements from spent fuels is a very interesting subject for limited natural resources in our country. In the present study, the technical feasibility of liquid metal extraction for the recovery of platinum group elements has been investigated not only theoretically but also experimentally.Liquid metal extraction is usually performed in binary phase extraction systems of extractant and flux, and a large number of the combination of extractant and flux may be considered. It is not easy but is difficult to examine all of these systems experimentally. A thermodynamic model has thus been presented on the basis of previous studies, and has been applied to predict the performance of liquid metal extraction prior to experimental works. A high performance has been predicted in the case of such extractants as Zn and Sn.Following the theoretical predictions, the performance of some promising extraction systems has been studied experimentally. Since the extractant liquid metals were predicted to play important roles, different metals of Zn, -Cd, Sn, Pb and Bi were compared with one another by laking the reference flux phase of LiCl-KC]. The experimental results of the recovery yields and decontamination factors of platinum group elements well agreed with the predictions of the thermodynamic model and a high performances was confirmed for Zn and Sn.The present study has shown that a very high performance of liquid metal extraction is expected with the selected extractant and extraction condition. It can be concluded that liquid metal extraction is promising as a means of the recovery of platinum group elements and that it is worth of further research and development.