ICK!!! Going through some old literature I came across a process with an obscenity as a name.

[NNadir]

In my general scientific reading, I came across this paper: Adsorption and Chromatographic Behavior of Dispersed Sodium Bismuthate Systems for the Separation of Americium from Curium Samantha A. Labb and Ralf Sudowe Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2025 64 (8), 4516-4524

It caught my eye since I believe that the recovery of the transplutonium actinides is a key technology if we are to save the world, and I'm particularly interested in americium as a potential nuclear fuel owing to the high neutron multiplicity in fission.

I discussed this recently at DU: Some Aspects of the Use of Americium as a Nuclear Fuel There are, as I noted in the post, some technical problems with this idea, but they are, in my view, surmountable.

Invariably, the use of americium as a neat fuel, or even as a mixed fuel, will lead to the generation of curium, in particular the highly radioactive (and valuable) isotope ²⁴⁴Cm. The paper cited above has this to say about americium and curium and their relative position:

Introduction
The separation of americium (Am) from curium (Cm) has prevailed as one of the most difficult separations to achieve in radioanalytical chemistry, and it is limited by the similar chemical properties of these two elements (e.g., predominate trivalent oxidation states in aqueous acidic media, similar ionic radii). A primary motivation for the development of a rapid and highly selective separation of the two adjacent actinides is the facilitation of a closed nuclear fuel cycle. With no long-term disposal plan for the large inventory of used nuclear fuel (UNF), the implementation of partitioning and transmutation (P&T) is a rational approach toward recycling UNF to increase resource utilization and fuel cycle sustainability. Am and Cm are major contributors to the long-term radiotoxicity of UNF, and their elimination from the waste stream for reuse in a nuclear reactor is necessary. (1,2) Am is generally considered the prime candidate for transmutation, and while Cm transmutation is possible, the high heat load and intense neutron emissions make the use of Cm targets unfavorable. (3,4) Thus, the separation of Am and Cm is required as the final stage of any complete UNF reprocessing strategy. Additionally, the purification of these radionuclides is necessary for target development used in isotope production and cross-section measurements as well as for the analysis of environmental samples...

²⁴⁴Cm produces a power output just shy of 3 watts/gram, which makes it, to my mind, a potential fuel for thermoelectric devices to provide continuous small uninterruptable power sources. A drawback is that it and its decay product, ²⁴⁰Pu release a lot of neutrons from spontaneous fission, although this may not be a drawback is the resultant neutrons are put to good use. The neutron flux from ²⁴⁴Cm is 1.01 X 10⁷ neutrons per gram per second. (cf. M. Salvatores, G. Palmiotti, Radioactive waste partitioning and transmutation within advanced fuel cycles: Achievements and challenges, Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics, Volume 66, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 144-166). The neutron flux from ²⁴⁰Pu is 1060 neutrons per gram per second. (Cf. Yoshiki Kimura, Masaki Saito, Hiroshi Sagara, Improvement of evaluation methodology of plutonium for intrinsic feature of proliferation resistance based on its isotopic barrier, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Volume 40, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 130-140.)

Anyway.

The paper cited at the top of this post is essentially a chromatographic method relying on oxidized bismuth to oxidize americium to one of its higher, but generally unstable oxidation states.

To me, industrial processes relying on chromatography, although they are known, are less than ideal.

I'm not a solvent extraction (i.e Purex, Truex, etc., etc.) kind of guy. I like fluoride volatility methods. However neither americium nor curium produce very volatile fluorides, but they, along with some lanthanide fission products would be a kind of residue after removal of the volatile fluorides, many of the transition element fission products as well as uranium, neptunium, and plutonium hexafluorides, all of which are volatile. The americium, curium and lanthanide residue would be in the form of fluorides

So I poked around a bit to see if there were papers and came across this paper that's now around 30 years old: Electrochemical separation of actinides and fission products in molten salt electrolyte R. L. Gay; L. F. Grantham; S. P. Fusselman; D. L. Grimmett; J. J. Roy AIP Conf. Proc. 346, 639–645 (1995). It kind of fits the bill at what I was trying to get.

And what is the process called in the text of the paper. With some regret, being forced to mutter an obscenity I really don't like to use, although I'm hardly prudish about using "bad words," let me tell you by quoting the introduction:

The presence of rare earth fission products acts as competition for the transmutation neutrons and increasing concentration of rare earths lowers the efficiency of the transmutation process. Rockwell International, together with the Univ. of Missouri, the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (of Japan), and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, has been developing a molten salt separation process for PUREX waste over the past six years. This process, called TRUMP-S (TRansUranic Management by Pyropartitioning Separation), is a pyrochemical waste management process that uses a series of processing steps to achieve a final electrolytic separation of actinides from fission products in molten eutectic LiC1/KC1 solution

Tr**p-S?

Ick.

Maybe the process is cool, but if it ever comes up again - it probably won't - it needs a better name.

[erronis]

1. I know. At bridge (the card game) people love to bid "No trump!"

[Nittersing]

2. Waste management sees appropriate. nt

[lastlib]

3. That process has the same name....

...as the stuff I unload into the toilet when I, um, you know......