Nuclear fuel-processing facilities

IAEA (1999) Report on the preliminary fact finding mission following the accident at the nuclear fuel processing facility at Tokaimura, Japan , Vieima. 

Technetimn-99 has been dispersed in the environment from many sources such as nuclear weapons testing, releases from medical or industrial processes, nuclear power plants and nuclear fuel processing facilities. The pertechnetate ion, TcOT is the form produced during the nuclear fuel cycle and the most likely to be released into the environment. 

This process may also be suitable for waste streams from metals reprocessing facilities in addition to those waste streams from nuclear fuels processing and reprocessing facilities. 

The Rover Fuels Processing Facility provides a head-end system designed specifically for reclaiming uranium from graphite matrix nuclear rocket fuels. Residual ash from fluidized bed burners is charged to the dissolver and is dissolved tmd complexed in a four step process (a) nitric acid dissolution (b) water dilution (c) hydrofluoric acid dissolution and (d) fluoride com-plexing. Quantities of reagents are determined by foe... 

Orton, C.R., Fraga, C.G., Christensen, R.N. et al. (2011). Proof of concept simulations of the multi-isotope process monitor An on-line, non-destructive, near-real-time safeguards monitor for nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 629, 209-219. 

The demands for assessing the potential impact of radionuclides produced by military and nuclear power supply applications on environmental quality and human and the desire to remediate radionuclide-contaminated site have triggered an intensive and wide range of research activities. Soil chemical reactions are critical to both environment and human health and to successful remediation. This chapter s aim is to briefly describes the physical and chemical characteristics of the most important radioactive nuclides likely to be found in soils. The primary sources of these radionuclides include the fallout from atmospheric weapon tests, release from fuel processes facilities, nuclear material storage facilities, biomedical applications, and, of course, naturally-occurring radioactive elements. The forms and interactions of the radionuclides in soil environment are subsequently discussed. 

Dose estimates from other measured environmental samples are many orders of magnitude loiver than the estimates calculated in the previous sections for a concentration of 1 pCi m in air. The peak concentration of 2 pCi L as determined in milk samples near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant, would require maintenance of an air concentration of 1.7 X 10 pCi m , according to the model used above. Concentrations of in air around nuclear power plants are so much lower than those calculated for air around fuel processing facilities that they are essentially undetectable. 

Department of Energy - has sponsored analyses of its reactors and process facilities, the risks of the breeder reactor, the risk of nuclear material transportation and disposal, and the risks of several fuel cycles. 

The steam electric power generation industry is defined as those establishments primarily engaged in the steam generation of electrical energy for distribution and sale. Those establishments produce electricity primarily from a process utilizing fossil-type fuel (coal, oil, or gas) or nuclear fuel in conjunction with a thermal cycle employing the steam-water system as the thermodynamic medium. The industry does not include steam electric power plants in industrial, commercial, or other facilities. The industry in the United States falls under two Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes SIC 4911 and SIC 4931. 

Over 5001 of HLW have been vitrified in France and Germany. In the USA, the HLW at the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in West Valley Plant, New York, have been vitrified (300 two-ton canisters) and vitrification is ongoing at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at Savannah River, South Carolina 1600 canisters by February 2004). A vitrification plant is under construction at Hanford, Washington. Vitrification of all of the HLW in the USA will generate approximately 20 000 canisters, which are destined for disposal at the geological repository at Yucca Mountain. 

Enriched UF6 is processed into U02 powder at fuel fabrication facilities using one of several methods. In one process uranium hexafluoride is vaporized and then absorbed by water to produce uranyl fluoride, U02F2, solution. Ammonium hydroxide is added to this solution and ammonium diuranate is precipitated. Ammonium diuranate is dried, reduced, and milled to make uranium dioxide powder. The powder is pressed into fuel pellets for nuclear reactors. 

The centrifugal contactor was first used to reprocess spent nuclear fuel at the SRS in 1966 (Webster et al., 1969). For almost 40 years, this 18-stage 25-cm SRL contactor was used for the extraction and scrub sections (the A-bank) of the PUREX (plutonium-uranium extraction) process at the SRS. Contactor operation stopped when the facility in which they were housed was shut down in 2003. This 18-stage contactor replaced a 24-stage mixer-settler. Mixer-settlers continued to be used for the rest of the processing, as most of the radiation was removed in the A-bank. The ability to... 

A permanently inereasing gap between the growth in Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) amoimt, on the one hand, and the deficiency in storage facilities taken together with insufficient capacities of SNF-processing enterprises, on the other hand, are characteristic for the actual phase of nuclear power industry development throughout the World including Russia. 

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