Reprocessing method, nuclear fuel aqueous process

Aqueous reprocessing methods have been developed to effect an efficient and thorough separation of fissile elements from the contaminating fission products in spent fuel( l). While these processes may be altered to yield a proliferations-resistant product by coprocessing or by the addition of radioactive material that will contaminate the clean fissile material, it still is necessary to safeguard some of the process steps to ensure that material useful in nuclear weapons will not be diverted (3). The safeguard requirements and the ease of subversion of such provisions make many versions of the conventional processes subject to unacceptable proliferation risks. 

The pyrochemical coprocessing of spent nuclear fuel by the Salt Transport Process appears to be a potentially viable reprocessing method, not only as an "exportable proliferation resistant technology," but as a domestic reprocessing operation. All operations are nonaqueous and waste generation is in solid form, thus requiring no conversion from aqueous solutions to solids. 

It is proposed to use non-aqueous methods of fuel reprocessing. Non-aqueous technologies developed in Russia and related to the processing of fuel from fast reactors with incomplete purification from fission products (about 1% of them remain in refabricated fuel) and with the release of only curium from the fuel (neptunium and americium and 1% of curium remain) allow the production of such fresh fuel for fast reactors that cannot be directly used to create nuclear weapons [XVI-9]. 

In the non-aqueous reprocessing process of spent nuclear fuels by pyrometallurgical and electrowinning methods [1, 2], a spent fuel is dissolved into molten LiCl-KCl or NaCl-CsCI eutectic melt and dissolved uranium and plutonium ions are recovered as metal or oxide. 

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