Zirconium nuclear fuel reprocessing

Lamouroux, C., Moulin, C., Tabet, J.C., Jankowki, C.K. 2000. Characterization of zirconium complexes of interest in spent nuclear fuel reprocessing by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 14 1869-1877. 

Nuclear fuel rods consist of uranium oxide pellets contained in zirconium alloy or steel tubes. As the fission process proceeds, uranium is used up and fission products accumulate. A lot of these fission products are good neutron absorbers and reduce the efficiency of the fission process (by absorbing neutrons before they reach uranium atoms) so that the rods are removed for reprocessing before all the content has undergone fission. Fission of a atom produces two lighter atoms of approximate relative atomic masses around 90-100 and 130-140, with the main fission products being the intensely radioactive and short lived I (fi 8 d), °La, Pr, Zr, Ru, and Nb, and longer-lived... 

The operations and facilities include ore exploration (not included in NFCIS list), mining, ore processing, uranium recovery, chemical conversion to UO2, UO3, UF4, UFg, and uranium metal, isotope enrichment, reconversion of UF to UO2 (after enrichment), and fuel fabrication and assembly that are all part of the front end of the NFC. The central part of the NFC is the production of electric power in the nuclear reactor (fuel irradiation). The back end of the NFC includes facilities to deal with the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) after irradiation in a reactor and the disposal of the spent fuel (SF). The spent fuel first has to be stored for some period to allow decay of the short-lived fission products and activation products and then disposed at waste management facilities without, or after, reprocessing to separate the fission products from the useful actinides (uranium and plutonium). Note the relatively large number of facilities in Table 2.1 dedicated to dealing with the spent fuel. Also listed in Table 2.1 are related industrial activities that do not involve uranium, like heavy water (D2O) production, zirconium alloy manufacturing, and fabrication of fuel assembly components. 

There is an increasing interest in the use of zirconium for HNO3 service. For example, because of the high degree of concern over safety, zirconium is chosen as than major structural material for critical equipment used to reprocess spent nuclear fuels. 

The Idaho Chemical Processing Plant is a versatile, multipurpose facility used for recovering highly enriched uranium from a variety of fuels in naval propulsion, research, and test reactors. Materials processed [Al] include aluminum-alloyed, zirconium-alloyed, stainless steel-based, and graphite-based fuels. The West Valley plant, although designed primarily for low-enriched uranium fuel from power reactors, also processed plutonium-enriched and thorium-based fuels. It is the only U.S. plant to have reprocessed fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. 

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