Slurry Reprocessing

Some work has already been done on reprocessing slurry, but to date the focus has been on oxide slurry reprocessing. Given the remarkably high contribution of slurry cost to the overall cost of ownership, one can reasonably expect that slurry reprocessing will play a greater role in the future. 

In the United States, Hquid HLW from the reprocessing of defense program fuels was concentrated, neutralized with NaOH, and stored in underground, mild steel tanks pending soHdification and geologic disposal (see Tanks AND PRESSURE VESSELS). These wastes are a complex and chemically active slurry. Suspended in the supernatant Hquid are dissolver soHds which never went into solution, insoluble reaction products which formed in the tank, and salts which have exceeded their solubiHty limit. The kinetics of many of the reactions taking place are slow (years) so that the results of characterization... 

High-level radioactive waste (HLW) will be converted from an alkaline slurry to a durable borosilicate glass in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Plant (SRP) in South Carolina [17]. This waste is the residue from thirty years of reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuels for national defense purposes and is currently stored in large carbon-steel tanks. 

Simple fuel preparation ami reprocessing. The use of aqueous fuel solutions or slurries eliminates the expensive fuel-element fabrication step and simplifies the reprocessing of depleted fuel. 

The fuel reprocessing for HRE-3 will consist of concentrating insoluble fission and corrosion products in the underflow pots of hydroclone separators, recovery of uranium from the hydroclone underflow by UO4 precipitation, and recovery of D2O by evaporation. The slurry processing operation will consist of D2O recovery by evaporation and packaging the... 

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