Thermodynamic assessment of the LiF–CeF3–ThF4 system: Prediction of PuF3 concentration in a molten salt reactor fuel

A thermodynamic description of the LiF-CeF3-ThF4 system is made in this study using a two-sublattice model for the description of the solid solution and a quasi-chemical model based on quadruplet approximation for the liquid phase. New calorimetric experimental data of the binary LiF-CeF3, CeF3-ThF4 and ternary LiF-CeF3-ThF4 systems have been obtained in this work justifying the calculated phase diagrams. Using the obtained thermodynamic assessment the concentration of PuF3 in the LiF-ThF4 melt was estimated based on the similarities with CeF3 and the melting behaviour of the initial molten salt fast reactor fuel was discussed.
JRC.E.3-Materials research