Chlorination process applied to zirconium recovery from Zircaloy shavings

Abstract

The chlorination process is an attractive method for recovering metals from complex scrap. The process, which is performed at high temperatures, is able to convert all metals contained in the scrap into their respective chlorides. Then, they can be separated on the basis of their different physical properties. Finally, they can be reduced to metals by the Kroll process. This paper presents the application of the chlorination process to recover zirconium from scrap Zircaloy, which is a very common zirconium based alloy used in the nuclear industry. The study was carried out using thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis.