Development of the anode-liquid cathode module (ALCM) for a high-throughput electrowinner

The employment of multiple electrode pairs is one of the ways to achieve a high-throughput electrowinner. In order to improve the U/TRU recovery rate and also to obtain economic advantages for a molten salt electrowinning process, which is a major step in pyroprocessing, the development of an electrode module having a compact structure is required. Here, we designed an anode-liquid cathode module (ALCM), where two graphite anodes are symmetrically arranged centering on a liquid Cd cathode with a mesh stirrer to prevent the growth of U dendrites, to be applied to the electrowinning process. As a preliminary study, basic electrochemical characterization of the designed electrode module was conducted and its capability for U recovery was evaluated in the ALCM-employed lab-scale electrowinner including LiCl–KCl-UCl₃ at 500 °C. Also, the morphology and component of the recovered U residue by distillation of the cathode product was examined by FE-SEM and EDS analyses.