APPLICATION OF COLUMN EXTRACTION METHOD FOR IMPURITIES ANALYSIS ON HB-LINE PLUTONIUM OXIDE IN SUPPORT OF MOX FEED PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS

The current mission at H-Canyon involves the dissolution of an Alternate Feedstocks 2 (AFS-2) inventory that contains plutonium metal. Once dissolved, HB-Line is tasked with purifying the plutonium solution via anion exchange, precipitating the Pu as oxalate, and calcining to form plutonium oxide (PuO{sub 2}). The PuO{sub 2} will provide feed product for the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, and the anion exchange raffinate will be transferred to H-Canyon. The results presented in this report document the potential success of the RE resin column extraction application on highly concentrated Pu samples to meet MOX feed product specifications. The original 'Hearts Cut' sample required a 10000x dilution to limit instrument drift on the ICP-MS method. The instrument dilution factors improved to 125x and 250x for the sample raffinate and sample eluent, respectively. As noted in the introduction, the significantly lower dilutions help to drop the total MRL for the analyte. Although the spike recoveries were half of expected in the eluent for several key elements, they were between 94-98% after Nd tracer correction. It is seen that the lower ICD limit requirements for the rare earths are attainable because of less dilution. Especially important is the extremely low Ga limit at 0.12 {mu}g/g Pu; an ICP-MS method is now available to accomplish this task on the sample raffinate. While B and V meet the column A limits, further development is needed to meet the column B limits. Even though V remained on the RE resin column, an analysis method is ready for investigation on the ICP-MS, but it does not mean that V cannot be measured on the ICP-ES at a low dilution to meet the column B limits. Furthermore, this column method can be applicable for ICP-ES as shown in Table 3-2, in that it trims the sample of Pu, decreasing and sometimes eliminating Pu spectral interferences