The purpose of the study is to develop technology for pre-treatment of oxide fuel reprocessing through pyroprocess. In the pre-treatment process, it is necessary to reduce actinide oxide to metallic form. This paper outlines some experimental results of uranium oxide reduction and recovery of refined metallic uranium in electrorefming. Both uranium oxide granules and pellets were used for the experiments. Uranium oxide granules was completely reduced by lithium in several hours at 650°C. Reduced uranium pellets by about 70% provided a simulation of partial reduction for the process flow design. Almost all adherent residues of Li and Li 2 0 were successfully washed out with fresh Liel salt. During electrorefming, metallic uranium deposited on the iron cathode as expected. The recovery efficiencies of metallic uranium from reduced uranium oxide granules and from pellets were about 90% and 50%, respectively. The mass balance data provided the technical bases of Li reduction and refming process flow for design.
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