Description:
Technology to convert a broad range of oxidized actinide species to metal, which can be utilized in numerous industrial safety and fuel issues related to Nuclear energy and technology.
Invention Description:
This technology can be utilized to transform a wide variety of oxidized actinide species to metal which is important to many different industrial safety and fuel issues associated with Nuclear energy and technology.
Ionic liquids (ILs) are chemically stable purely ionic solutions at room temperature and they are composed of cation/anion pairs that can be exploited to provide a wide range of tunable physical and chemical properties. Ionic liquids also provide unique solution environments for electrochemical deposition of actinides because traditional side-reactions associated with common working electrodes in aqueous solution are eliminated.
The goal of the research is to increase the ultimate solubility and to facilitate the in-situ formation of stable, coordinated actinide complexes to provide a more stable system. To date, the deposition of U metal from ionic liquid using electrochemical methods has been successfully demonstrated.
Benefits/advantages
- Ionic liquid is a more efficient process that allows a host of actinide species to be recovered as metal
Applications
- UF6 stabilization and recovery
- Recovery of actinide species in various oxidized forms
- Nuclear fuel.
Market Opportunity
The global ionic liquids market size was USD 36.0 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 78.19 billion in 2032, and register a revenue CAGR of 9% during the forecast period.Ionic liquid chemistry has developed into a tremendously popular field of chemistry within the last decade. The widely tunable class of ILs has become important for lanthanide and actinide coordination chemistry. The need for ionic liquids in a variety of applications, including electrochemistry, catalysis, and extraction, as well as growing public awareness of their advantages over conventional Solvents, are some of the factors driving the market revenue growth.
“Ionic liquids (ILs) are novel solvents due to their low volatility, chemical and thermal stability, and inherent conductivity.”Their utility in electrochemical experiments is largely based on the ionic conductivity and the large potential window that can range from 4.5 to 6 V in the absence of appreciable water or oxygen. The expanded potential limits of IL solutions allow the electrochemical properties of soluble species to be explored that are precluded in aqueous environments.