The development of ionic methods for the determination of corrosion products in the highly radioactive Homogeneous Reactor (HR) fuels has been of major interest in the work of the Ionic Analyses Laboratory. Methods for the spectrophotometric determination of aluminum and for the polarographic determination of iron in HR fuels have been developed. The polarographic determination of molybdenum in uranyl sulfate solutions was studied. A polarographic method for the determination of zinc was developed. A fluorometric method for the determination of microgram amounts of fluoride was studied. Three organic reagents were investigated as precipitants for microgram quantities of zirconium in HR fuel. The automatic photometric titration technique was applied to the determination of thorium and of sulfate. A method was developed for the ionexchange separation and potentiometric titration of cobalt. The ultraviolet absorption spectra of technetium and rhenium were studied.

General considerations involving the transportation of irradiated fuel and radioactive wastes are reviewed. It is assumed that many reactors will supply feed to a few large multipurpose chemical plants which ultimately send radioactive waste to a few disposal sites. General economic considerations of irradiated fuel reprocessing, economic aspects of the nuclear economy complex, growth predictions of the nuclear power economy in the U.S., general requirements for the shipment of fuel and waste, regulations applicable to fuel shipment, and permissible radiation levels are discussed.

A study was made of a method for the flame photometric determination of iron. In Part I of this report, the flame emission spectrum of iron, measured by means of a Beckman Model DU spectrophotometer with a flame attachment, is compated to that measured with an ORNL high-sensitivity, recording, single-beam instrument, in order to determine which instrument is best suited for this application. Although it was found that the Beckman product has the higher resolving power over the wavelength region of 360 to 400mu, it does no posses the sensitivity or ease of operation of the ORNL instrument. On this basis, the ORNL flame spectrophotometer is used in subsequent tests. After selecting the best-suited instrument for the flame photometric determination of iron, it was necessary to establish the optimum operating conditions for this particular method. These conditions are described in Part II.