ABSTRACT
Waste and residue salts are generated in the production of uranium and plutonium metal and in plutonium metal purification. Magnesium fluoride salts that contain up to 5% of the feed uranium are produced during the production of depleted uranium metal. The plutonium pyrochemical processes, direct oxide reduction, molten-salt extraction, and electrorefining, use lower-melting chloride-based salts. Waste and residue salts from these processes can be treated by either pyrochemical or aqueous technologies to separate the plutonium from the waste salt. This chapter covers the pyrochemical processing of plutonium residue salts. The pyrochemical salt scrub process can also be used to recover the remains of depleted uranium present in magnesium fluoride salt produced during the reduction of uranium fluoride to metal. A scrub alloy metal could be used to reduce uranium fluoride and uranium oxide compounds to uranium metal. Pyrochemical salt scrub tests with the Calcium titration system have resulted in automated operations that were comparable to manual operations.
