Effect of process parameters on the recovery of thorium tetrafl uoride prepared by hydrofl uorination of thorium oxide, and their optimization

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and technology pp. 1560 - 1569
• Main Authors: Raj Kumar, Sonal Gupta, Sourabh Wajhal, S.K. Satpati, M.L. Sahu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국원자력학회 01.05.2022
• Subjects: 원자력공학
• ISSN: 1738-5733; 2234-358X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.net.2021.11.004

Liquid fueled molten salt reactors (MSRs) have seen renewed interest because of their inherent safetyfeatures, higher thermal efficiency and potential for efficient thorium utilisation for power generation. Thorium fluoride is one of the salts used in liquid fueled MSRs employing TheU cycle. In the presentstudy, ThF4 was prepared by hydro-fluorination of ThO2 using anhydrous HF gas. Process parameters viz. bed depth, hydrofluorination time and hydrofluorination temperature, were optimized for the preparation of ThF4 in a static bed reactor setup. The products were characterized with X-Ray diffraction andexperimental conditions for complete conversion to ThF4 were established which also corroborated withthe yield values. Hydrofluorination of ThO2 at 450 C for half an hour at a bed depth of 6 mm gave thebest result, with a yield of about 99.36% ThF4. No unconverted oxide or any other impurity was observed. Rietveld refinement was performed on the XRD data of this ThF4, and Chi2 value of 3.54 indicated goodagreement between observed and calculated profiles. KCI Citation Count: 0