Supplementary Materials
Electrochemical properties of uranium on the liquid gallium electrode in LiCl-KCleutectic
KuiLiu1, Hong-Bin Tang3, Jin-Wen Pang1, Ya-LanLiu1, Yi-XiaoFeng1, Zhi-Fang Chai1, 2, Wei-QunShi1*
1Laboratory of Nuclear Energy Chemistry,Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
2 School of Radiological & Interdisciplinary Sciences and Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou215123, China
3Division of Radiochemistry, China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing 102413, China
E-mail: *, Tel: +86-10-88233968
Figure 1 presents the CV curves recorded on a tungsten electrode in the LiCl-KCl-GaCl3melt at different scan rate with a potential range from -0.5 to 0.1V. The peak potentials of R1/O1 and R2/O2 don’t change much with the increase of scan rate, which suggest that these two electrode reactionsare possibly reversible. Figure 2 presents the linear relationship between the current for peak R1and the square roots of scan rate, which indicates the mass diffusion of Ga(III) in the melt. Based on these results, we can use the equation (1) to calculate the number of electron transferredinvolved in the electrochemical reaction at peak R1. A range of values from 1.93 to 1.82 are obtained,being related to the number of electron transferred at different scan rate from 20 to 200mV/s.
(1)
Thus, the electrochemical reaction at peak R1 can be deduced as:
(2)
Then, the next reduction step at R2 can be given as:
(3)
The sharp oxidation peak O2 gives a hint that the stripping of an insoluble product on the electrode may occur, which correspond to the dissolution of Ga metal formed at peak R2.
Figure 1.CV curves recorded on a tungsten electrode(0.479cm2) for the reduction of Ga(III) in the LiCl-KCl-GaCl3(6.44×10-5mol/cm3)at different scan rate.
Figure 2.The linear relationship of current for peak R1and the square roots of scan rate.