Influence of the Experimental Conditions on the Radiolytic Stability of N, N, N',N'-Tetraoctyldiglycolamide (TODGA)

The stability of the extraction systems employed for the recovery of minor actinide involved in the advanced nuclear cycles is a limiting point for the development of several extraction processes.This work summarizes the efforts developed in recent years at the High-Level Waste Unit at CIEMAT to validate, from the point of view of its radiolytic stability, the use of the TODGA-based systems under development for the recovery of actinides through processes such as i-SANEX, EURO-GANEX and AmSel.Therefore, during years, several authors have studied TODGA resistance, and the implications of different experimental conditions on the radiolytic stability of TODGA have been explored.Factors such as the presence of oxygen, phase contact and metal complexation during the irradiation process have been recently published.However, other representative experimental conditions, such as the presence of a phase modifier and the irradiation procedure, have not been studied with a focus on TODGA stability.For that reason, this study aims to evaluate the effects of the presence of phase modifiers in the organic solvent as well as the irradiation procedure, to clarify the impact of each factor not only on TODGA degradation but also on the formation of its degradation compounds.