Plutonium Pyrochemical Salts Oxidation Using Vanadium Oxide

This paper presents results from the oxidation of PuCl 3 with two-thirds, one, and two equivalents of V 2 O 5 and the oxidation of Pu° with two and three equivalents of V 2 O 5 . All of the PuCl 3 reactions were successful in that little or no starting materials remained and the major plutonium reaction product was PuO 2 . There is no evidence that V is reduced to V(II) or V°. According to powder XRD analysis, the bottom layers of all three reactions are identical, the middle layers contain different phases, and phases in the top layer of the oxidation with one equivalent of V 2 O 5 is contained in the top layer from the oxidation with two-thirds equivalent of V 2 O 5 . The Pu° oxidations are more complex than the PuCl 3 oxidations. More unreacted Pu° remains in the reaction using three equivalents of V 2 O 5 than the reaction using two equivalents of V 2 O 5 . The lack of predictability of these reactions may be a result of the source of Pu° used in our experiments. The presence of soluble Pu(III) and the relative absence of PuO 2 in all the Pu° reactions suggests V 2 O 5 does not oxidize Pu° to Pu(IV) under these conditions. Chlorine is detected in the off-gas of the Pu° oxidations, indicating the salt matrix participates in the reaction.