Aqueous reprocessing redox process

Variants of the Purex (Pu-U Reduction Extraction) process are the most widely used plutonium-reprocessing schemes worldwide. Purex on the industrial scale began at the US Savannah River Plant in 1954 and replaced the Redox process at the Hanford works in 1956 every country that has produced significant quantities of plutonium has exploited the method. In Purex, the organic extractant is tributyl phosphate (TBP). In addition to optimum com-plexation properties for nuclear analytes of interest, TBP has a low aqueous solubility and is chemically and radiolytically stable. The density of TBP (0.98 g/cm ) is so close to that of water that it is common to dilute it in a lower density solvent. It is completely miscible with common organic solvents (e.g., kerosene, n-dodecane) at ordinary temperatures. 

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