| Project Detail |
The U.S. has accumulated approximately 86,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel (UNF) from light-water reactors (LWRs), a value that increases by approximately 2,000 tons per year. This UNF is destined for permanent disposal even though more than 90% of its energy remains. Innovative technologies that enable the secure, economical reprocessing of the nation’s LWR UNF could substantially reduce the volume, heat load, and radiotoxicity of waste requiring permanent disposal while providing a valuable and sustainable fuel feedstock for advanced fast reactors. CURIE seeks to research innovative separations technologies, material accountancy, and online monitoring technologies, as well as designs for a reprocessing facility that will enable group recovery of actinides for advanced reactor (AR) feedstocks, incorporate in situ process monitoring, minimize waste volumes, enable a 1¢/kilowatt-hour (kWh) fuel cost for AR fuels, and maintain disposal costs in the range of 0.1¢/kWh.
Project Innovation + Advantages:
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) will design, fabricate, and test robust anode materials for recovering actinide elements from used LWR fuels through a molten salt electrochemical process. Current anode materials, which are typically fabricated from either platinum or graphite, are expensive, degrade rapidly, contaminate the reduced actinide product, and generate greenhouse gases when used to manufacture metallic products. The proposed anode materials consist of monolithic ruthenium metal, alloys of ruthenium and iridium (with transition metals), and ruthenium- and iridium-coated electrodes. The alloy anodes will be fabricated by electric field-assisted sintering/spark plasma sintering, and the coated anodes will be fabricated by cold spray and molten salt electroplating techniques. This project will identify new and cost-effective anode materials for not only recovering actinide elements from used oxide nuclear fuels without isolating pure plutonium but also for converting metal oxides to metals and alloys.
Potential Impact:
By enabling the secure and economical recycling of the nation’s inventory of LWR UNF, CURIE will have the following impacts: |
