Preparation of Massive Plutonium Metal Directly from Its Oxides

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Abstract
This report details a technique for the rapid production of massive Pu metal directly from its oxides. Salient features of this single unit process are as follows: the reduction of plutonium oxides with Ca metal; the extraction, by dissolution, of the calcium oxide reaction product with molten calcium chloride; and a quantitative separation of the two immiscible molten metal phases by the immiscible salt solution. Reduction, separation and massive metal yield efficiencies are in excess of 99.96%. The purity of the metal produced is equal to that of the initial feed material. The batch cycle time is 15 min. The single waste product is far below recovery level and is discardable as a small volume solid waste.

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