Improved electrorefiner Page: 4 of 16
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a solid cathode and a liquid cathode in an electrolytic cell
of the type hereinbefore described.
Electrorefining processes have been generally used to
recover high purity metal or metals from impure feed
materials and more particularly to recover materials such as
uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Electro-
refining of spent nuclear fuel is carried out in a
electrolysis cell of the kind disclosed in U.S. patent no.
2,951,793, 4,596,647, 4,880,506, 4,855,030 and 5,009,752,
10 the disclosures of each of these patents being incorporated
herein by reference and are generally indicative of the
prior art in this field, with the '030 patent being
particularly relevant since the present invention is an
improvement of the device disclosed therein.
In such cells as disclosed in the above-mentioned
patents, the spent nuclear fuel forms the anode or is
dissolved in an anode pool. An electrolytic cell is used,
and the purified metal is transferred electrochemically and
collected on the cathode. In other designs, an anode pool
20 is located at the bottom of the cell, and the cathode may be
located above the anode in the electrolyte pool. It has
been shown in the prior art that relatively pure uranium can
be electrolytically deposited on a solid cathode and
thereafter mixtures of uranium and plutonium can be
deposited on a molten metal cathode such as cadmium, see the
above-identified U.S. patent no. 4,880,506. In all of the2
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Miller, W. E. & Tomczuk, Z. Improved electrorefiner, patent, December 31, 1994; Illinois. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc692942/m1/4/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.