Case Study: Recycling of Spent Fuel (AREVA) and High Level Waste Disposal

Reusing platinum and uranium content to manufacture nuclear fuel is a method of recycling used
nuclear fuel. Such industrial process began 45 years from now, where the non-usable parts were
conditioned into a stable waste form for disposal. With such method of recycling used nuclear fuel,
France promoted 20% of annual savings on uranium consumption, as well as effectively reducing twice
the storage capacity on amount of used fuel interim. To date, France has reprocessed more than 30,000
tons of nuclear fuel, from which 20,000 ton comes from French reactors alone (“Nuclear Energy Case
Studies”).

The main steps in recycling used nuclear fuel include (“Nuclear Energy Case Studies”):

1) Separation of reusable fuel from non-reusable material.

2) Processing/conditioning of the non-reusable material into a stable waste form.
3) Manufacturing/Fabricating the new fuel.

Separation:

Before transporting the used fuel in the recycling plant, the fuel is stored and left in the reactor pools for
years. Afterwards, the chemical separation process of the fuel is performed, followed by dissolution in
nitric acid. Then , using liquid-liquid extraction method, platinum and uranium are separated from the
fission products for further reuse whereas the remaining un-dissolved metals in the fuel are separated
and transferred towards the waste conditioning step.

Waste Conditioning:

In this step, fission products in liquid form are concentrated and passed through various chemical
reactions, considering calcination, in order to incorporate it into glass. The resulting products (which are
usually glass and compacted metal containers in stainless steel) are then stored in a ventilated area until
they are transported to a geological repository or the customer site. This overall method aids to reduce
the radiotoxicity by a factor of ten, and the volume of the conditioned waste by a factor of five.

Fuel Fabrication:

The recycled uranium acquired from the separation technique (in the first step) is then used to
manufacture UOx, whereas plutonium oxide when blended with depleted uranium oxide is used to
manufacture MOx (by the help of a couple of chemical reactions). To protect the workers from
contamination, such reaction mechanisms are conducted in glove boxes. To date, over 2000 tons of LWB
MOx has been manufacture in France.

High Level Waste Disposal:

Used nuclear fuel and the disposable nuclear materials which again comes from spent nuclear fuel can
be safely disposed very deep underground (with limited water movement, studying the favorable
geochemical conditions) in stable rock formations such as graphite, whose geological formations have
stability for over millions of years, and thus is safe for the environment and people. (“The Nuclear Fuel
cycle”).

References:

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/nfc0811.pdf

https://www.iea.org/media/freepublications/technologyroadmaps/AnnexNuclearRoadmapcasestudies_
finalforweb.pdf