Application of bromine trifluoride for pre-concentration and determination of rare-earth elements in fuel uranium dioxide

Radioactive indicator's (¹⁵²Eu) method was used to study the behavior of rare-earth element (REE) micro-impurities at fluorination of fuel UO₂ with bromine trifluoride. The proposed process is very simple and carried out under a blanket layer of Freon-113 in the glassy carbon (vitreous) crucibles.It was shown that uranium matrix completely removes from reaction sphere in the form of UF₆ and REE contaminations quantitatively remain in crucible owing to practical non-volatility of their fluorides. High purity of fuel UO₂ causes small amount of the non-volatile rest (0.3-2 wt.% from initial weight) that considerably facilitates a problem of confident diagnostics of the strictly limited REE content in this material. Removal of uranium and concentration of REE from analyzed test samples via fluorination is several hundred times more rapid scheme of pre-sampling to atomic emission spectral determination of REE micro-quantities in UO₂ than traditionally used extraction and ion-exchange ways of the preliminary concentration of contaminations and removal of uranium.