Recycle of scrap plutonium-238 oxide fuel to support future radioisotope applications

The Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory has initiated a development program to recover & purify plutonium-238 oxide from impure feed sources in a glove box environment. A glove box line has been designed and a chemistry flowsheet developed to perform this recovery task at large scale. The initial demonstration effort focused on purification of (PuO2)-Pu-238, fuel by HNO3/HF dissolution, followed by plutonium(III) oxalate precipitation and calcination to an oxide. Decontamination factors for most impurities of concern in the fuel were very good, producing (PuO2)-Pu-238 fuel significantly better in purity than specified by General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) fuel powder specifications. A sufficient quantity of purified (PuO2)-Pu-238 fuel was recovered from the process to allow fabrication of a GPHS unit for testing. The results are encouraging for recycle of relatively impure plutonium-238 oxide and scrap residue items into fuel for useful applications. The high specific activity of plutonium-238 magnifies the consequences and concerns of radioactive waste generation. This work places an emphasis on development of waste minimization technologies to complement the aqueous processing operation. Results from experiments on neutralized solutions of plutonium-238 resulted in decontamination to about 1 millicurie/L. Combining ultrafiltration treatment with addition of a water-soluble polymer designed to coordinate Pu, allowed solutions to be decontaminated to about 1 microcurie/L. Efforts continue to develop a capability for efficient, safe, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable methods to recover and purify (PuO2)-Pu-238 fuel.