ANALISIS KANDUNGAN CESIUM DAN URANIUM DALAM BAHAN BAKAR U3Si2/Al PASCA IRADIASI

Abstract

Separation of fission product isotopes of ¹³⁷Cs and ²³⁵U has been done to determine content of ¹³⁷Cs and ²³⁵U in irradiated U₃Si₂/Al fuel plate of 2.96 gU/cm³ density. The initial step in the determination of ¹³⁷Cs and ²³⁵U content is sample cutting process. The cutting position was determined at the top middle and bottom part of the plate by an amount of 0.095 g; 0.1103 g and 0.1441g for each respective position. Each sample was dissolved in 25 mL of HNO₃ 6N dan HCl 6N to obtain irradiated U₃Si₂/Al solution. Separation was carried out by cation exchange and precipitation methods. The separation of ¹³⁷Cs was done by pipetting 150 µL of the irradiated U₃Si₂/Al sample solution and adding it to 1000 mg of Lampung zeolite, while the separation by precipitation method was done by adding 700 mg of CsNO₃ powder as carrier and HClO₄ to the U₃Si₂/Al sample solution. In the cation exchange method, ¹³⁷Cs would be bound by zeolite in the solid phase in the form of ¹³⁷Cs-zeolite and uranium would stay in the liquid phase or supernatant. The precipitation was done in an ice bath at -4 ^oC to obtain ¹³⁷CsClO₄ precipitate. The effluent leaving the column was subjected to electrodeposition process for ²³⁵U content measurement with α-spectrometer. The ¹³⁷Cs content obtained by cation exchange was 401.0335 µg/g FP (FP = irradiated fuel plate); 451.1094 µg/g FP and 343.9651 µg/g FP for each respective sample position by 99 % recovery, while the ¹³⁷Cs content obtained by precipitation method was 393.4581 µg/g FP; 452.0525 µg/g FP and 330.7839 µg/g FP for each respective sample position by 98 % recovery. The ²³⁵U content was found to be 45208 µg/g FP; 50896 µg/g FP and 44336 µg/g FP for each respective sample position by 68 % recovery.