Main Results of the French Program on Partitioning of Minor Actinides, a Significant Improvement Towards Nuclear Waste Reduction (original) (raw)
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1992-2017: 25 years of success story on Minor Actinides Partitioning Processes Development
2017
International audienceIn the frame of the successive 1991 and 2006 Waste Management Acts, French government supported a very significant RetD program on partitioning and transmutation of minor actinides (MA) in fast reactors. This program aimed to study potential solutions for still minimizing the quantity and the hazardousness of final waste, by MA recycling. Indeed, MA recycling can reduce the heat load and the radiotoxicity of most of the waste to be buried to a couple of hundred years, overcoming the concerns of the public related to the long-life of the waste. Over the 20 years of development, different types of strategies were studied, from the early multi-stage DIAMEX-SANEX processes to the most recent innovative SANEX, from the grouped extraction of MA thanks to the GANEX process to the most recent sole Americium recycling thanks to the EXAm process. These developments were supported by a robust and long-standing approach allowing successively to screen the potential extract...
Recycling the Actinides, The Cornerstone of Any Sustainable Nuclear Fuel Cycles
Procedia Chemistry, 2012
The sustainability of the current nuclear fuel cycles is not completely achieved since they do not optimise the consumption of natural resource (only a very small part of uranium is burnt) and they do not ensure a complete and efficient recycling of the potential energetic material like the actinides. Promoting nuclear energy as a future energy source requires proposing new nuclear systems that could meet the criteria of sustainability in terms of durability, bearability and liveability. In particular, it requires shifting towards more efficient fuel cycles, in which natural resources are saved, nuclear waste are minimised, efficiently confined and safely disposed of, in which safety and proliferation-resistance are more than ever ensured. Such evolution will require (i) as a mandatory step, evolutionary recycling of the major actinides U and Pu up to their optimized use as energetic materials using fast neutron spectra, (ii) as an optional step, the implementation of the recycling of minor actinides which are the main contributors to the long term heat power and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste. Both options will require fast neutrons reactors to ensure an efficient consumption of actinides. In such a context, the back-end of the fuel cycle will be significantly modified: implementation of advanced treatment/recycling processes, minor-actinides recovery and transmutation, production of lighter final waste requiring lower repository space. In view of the 2012 French milestones in the framework of the 2006 Waste Management Act, this paper will depict the current state of development with regards with these perspectives and will enlighten the consequences for the subsequent nuclear waste management.
SACSESS – the EURATOM FP7 project on actinide separation from spent nuclear fuels
Nukleonika, 2015
Recycling of actinides by their separation from spent nuclear fuel, followed by transmutation in fast neutron reactors of Generation IV, is considered the most promising strategy for nuclear waste management. Closing the fuel cycle and burning long-lived actinides allows optimizing the use of natural resources and minimizing the long-term hazard of high-level nuclear waste. Moreover, improving the safety and sustainability of nuclear power worldwide. This paper presents the activities striving to meet these challenges, carried out under the Euratom FP7 collaborative project SACSESS (Safety of Actinide Separation Processes). Emphasis is put on the safety issues of fuel reprocessing and waste storage. Two types of actinide separation processes, hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical, are considered, as well as related aspects of material studies, process modeling and the radiolytic stability of solvent extraction systems. Education and training of young researchers in nuclear chemis...
Actinides recycling within closed fuel cycles
Nuclear Engineering International
The global energy context argues in favour of the sustainable development of nuclear energy, since the demand for energy will significantly increase, while resources will tend to get scarcer. Reprocessing and recycling nuclear fuel, together with fast reactors, can help nuclear power to conserve existing uranium resources and reduce the nuclear waste burden for future generations.
Futuristic back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle with the partitioning of minor actinides
Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 2007
For future back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, the partitioning of minor actinides: Np, Am and Cm, followed by their transmutation will minimize importantly the radiotoxicity of nuclear glass waste. In this paper, the research done in France and in Europe will be presented: (i) partitioning of Np by modified PUREX process, (ii) partitioning of Am and Cm by the DIAMEX and SANEX hydrometallurgical processes.
Scientific Reports
Expanded low-carbon baseload power production through the use of nuclear fission can be enabled by recycling long-lived actinide isotopes within the nuclear fuel cycle. This approach provides the benefits of (a) more completely utilizing the energy potential of mined uranium, (b) reducing the footprint of nuclear geological repositories, and (c) reducing the time required for the radiotoxicity of the disposed waste to decrease to the level of uranium ore from one hundred thousand years to a few hundred years. A key step in achieving this goal is the separation of long-lived isotopes of americium (Am) and curium (Cm) for recycle into fast reactors. To achieve this goal, a novel process was successfully demonstrated on a laboratory scale using a bank of 1.25-cm centrifugal contactors, fabricated by additive manufacturing, and a simulant containing the major fission product elements. Americium and Cm were separated from the lanthanides with over 99.9% completion. The sum of the impurities of the Am/Cm product stream using the simulated raffinate was found to be 3.2 × 10 −3 g/L. The process performance was validated using a genuine high burnup used nuclear fuel raffinate in a batch regime. Separation factors of nearly 100 for 154 Eu over 241 Am were achieved. All these results indicate the process scalability to an engineering scale.
Minimization of actinide waste by multi-recycling of thoriated fuels in the EPR reactor
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2011
The multi-recycling of innovative uranium/thorium oxide fuels for use in the European Pressurized water Reactor (EPR) has been investigated. If increasing quantities of 238 U, the fertile isotope in standard UO 2 fuel, are replaced by 232 Th, then a greater yield of new fissile material (233 U) is produced during the cycle than would otherwise be the case. This leads to economies of natural uranium of around 45% if the uranium in the spent fuel is multi-recycled. In addition we show that minor actinide and plutonium waste inventories are reduced and hence waste radio-toxicities and decay heats are up to a factor of 20 lower after 10 3 years. Two innovative fuel types named S90 and S20, ThO 2 mixed with 90% and 20% enriched UO 2 respectively, are compared as an alternative to standard uranium oxide (UOX) and uranium/plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuels at the longest EPR fuel discharge burn-ups of 65 GWd/t. Fissile and waste inventories are examined, waste radio-toxicities and decay heats are extracted and safety feedback coefficients are calculated.
Actinide reCycling by SEParation and Transmutation
2008
Executive Summary: All along the last four years, the FP7 EURATOM Collaborative Project ACSEPT (Actinide recycling by SEParation and Transmutation) has coordinated the European Research on aqueous and pyroactinide chemical separation processes. A clear structuration of the work and an enthusiastic collaboration between Partners have allowed signi cant progress in actinide separation process development. In the eld of aqueous reprocessing, hot-test demonstrations have been carried out based on chemical systems developed in former European Projects (NEWPART, PARTNEW, EUROPART) or directly in ACSEPT. Process owsheets are now available for the regular SANEX, the innovative SANEX, the 1 cycle SANEX and the GANEX concepts (some of them being more elaborate alternatives to reference existing processes) paving the way for further optimisation. This progress was made possible thanks to a well driven organic synthesis work. It allowed the testing of more than 150 new molecules and the selecti...
ACSEPT—Partitioning technologies and actinide science: Towards pilot facilities in Europe
Nuclear Engineering and Design, 2011
Actinide recycling by separation and transmutation is considered worldwide and particularly in several European countries as one of the most promising strategies to reduce the inventory of radioactive waste and to optimise the use of natural resources. With its multidisciplinary consortium of 34 partners from 12 European countries plus Australia and Japan, the European Research Project ACSEPT (Actinide reCycling by SEParation and Transmutation) aims at contributing to the development of this strategy by studying both hydrometallurgical and pyrochemical partitioning routes.