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Study of molten chloride salt fast reactor fuel synthesis and purification


Thesis topic details

General information

Organisation

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.

Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.

The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
  

Reference

SL-DES-24-0059  

Thesis topic details

Category

Condensed Matter Physics, chemistry, nanosciences

Thesis topics

Study of molten chloride salt fast reactor fuel synthesis and purification

Contract

Thèse

Job description

Among a large variety of innovative reactor concepts used to decarbonize industry, a French fast reactor using molten chloride salts as fuel and primary coolant has been developed with a CEA-Orano collaboration. The reactor operates at temperature up to 600 °C in which actinides (An) are homogeneously dissolved in the liquid phase containing alkaline and alkaline earth chlorides. To feed it, an essential step is to produce the NaCl-MgCl2-AnCl3 fuel salt system without impurities to avoid corrosion and precipitations issues. The main aim is to study a way of producing molten salt fuel with a high purity level (as low contaminants content as possible). The first step is to synthesize and characterize actinide chlorides by a multi-scale approach (XRD, SEM, TGA-DSC, WDS…). Actinide chlorides are hygroscopic and easily absorb moisture from the environment. The reference synthesis route is a gas-solid reaction by hydrochlorination of actinide oxalate. The investigation of other synthesis methods is also planned in order to obtain less hygroscopic material. Synthesized products will studied by electrochemistry after dissolution in the molten salt phase to determine actinides purity and contaminants nature and content. A purification process is used as the last step to remove most of impurities from the molten salt. Purification issues are impurity content determination and the definition of salt purity criterion. Some physicochemical properties measurements could be performed with purified salts.

University / doctoral school

Sciences de la Matière, du Rayonnement et de l’Environnement (SMRE)
Lille I

Thesis topic location

Site

Marcoule

Requester

Position start date

01/10/2024

Person to be contacted by the applicant

C5A157F1A98A4307B71EA6022A07F8A8@ts.com

Tutor / Responsible thesis director

D15CA09747744E22934C2C78CE24A1A7@ts.com

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