Articles techniques et présentations

Electrorefining is an electrolytic process for obtaining high purity metal. In this process the impure metal is made anode and the high purity metal is deposited on cathode. Electrorefining is a key step in pyrochemical reprocessing of spent fuel from metal fuel fast reactors. Development of an electrorefining cell, in which processing of 10 kg of simulated spent fuel will be demonstrated, is under progress in IGCAR. In this paper the preliminary study carried out to evaluate the cell resistance of the proposed design of electrorefining cell, is brought out. Specifically the effect of Bottom Insulation Plate of Cathode, provided to prevent the falling off of the cadthode deposit into the molten salt electrolyte, is presented. The results were obtained by 3D simulation of the electrorefining cell using COMSOL Multiphysics software.