• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2013

The rare earth oxide wastes consisting of major 8 nuclides Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu and Gd, are generated during the salt waste treatment of PyroGreen process. The final form of the rare earth is generated as the oxide state. In this study, six candidate glasses were developed to evaluate the feasibility for vitrifying the rare earth oxide wastes within the borosilicate glass system. The solubilities of the mixture of the rare earth oxide waste showed less than 25wt% at $1,200^{\circ}C$, less than 30wt% at $1,300^{\circ}C$, respectively. It means that solubility is increased with the temperature increment. The liquidus temperature of the homogeneous glass with 20wt% waste loading was determined as less than $950^{\circ}C$. In more than solubility of rare earth oxides glass, formation of rare earth-oxide-silicate crystal in glass-ceramic occurred as the secondary phase. As their viscosity at melting temperature $1,200{\sim}1,300^{\circ}C$ was less than 100 poise, electrical conductivity was higher than 1 S/cm, 20~25wt% waste loading glasses with good surface homogeneity are judged to have good operability in cold crucible induction melter. Other physicochemical properties of the developed glasses are going to be experimented in the future.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2012

Metal chloride waste is generated as a main waste streams in a series of electrolytic processes of a pyrochemical process. Different from carbonate or nitrate salt, metal chloride is not decomposed into oxide and chlorine but it is just vaporized. Also, it has low compatibility with conventional silicate glasses. Our research group adapted the dechlorination approach for the immobilization of waste salt. In this study, the composition of SAP ($SiO_2-Al_2O_3-P_2O_5$) was adjusted to enhance the reactivity and to simplify the solidification process as a subsequent research. The addition of $Fe_2O_3$ into the basic SAP decreased the SAP/Salt ratio in weight from 3 for SAP 1071 to 2.25 for M-SAP( Fe=0.1). The experimental results indicated that the addition of $Fe_2O_3$ increased the reactivity of M-SAP with LiCl-KCl but the reactivity gradually decreased above Fe=0.1. Also, introducing $B_2O_3$ into M-SAP requires no glass binder for the consolidation of reaction products. U-SAP ($SiO_2-Al_2O_3-Fe_2O_3-P_2O_5-B_2O_3$) could effectively dechlorinate the LiCl-KCl waste and its reaction product could be consolidated as a monolithic form without a glass binder. The leaching test result indicated that U-SAP 1071 was more durable than other SAPs wasteform. By using U-SAP, 1 g of waste salt could generated 3~4 g of wasteform for final disposal. The final volume would be about 3~4 times lower than the glass-bonded sodalite. From these results, it could be concluded that the dechlorination approach using U-SAP would be one of prospective methods to manage the volatile waste salt.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2012

Spent fuels are discharged from nuclear reactors as a result of power generations. The spent fuels would be considered as a useful resources because the main constituent is uranium and some other actinides are included in them. In order to utilize the resources chemical processes should be developed to treat the spent fuels and obtain uranium and other actinides to be fueled in a fast reactor. The technologies are categorized into wet and dry processes. In this study, the current status of such technologies is summarized to give a insight and a deep understanding on nuclear fuel cycles.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2012

The metal chloride wastes from a pyrochemical process to recover uranium and transuranic elements has been considered as a problematic waste difficult to apply to a conventional solidification method due to the high volatility and low compatibility with silicate glass. In this study, a dechlorination approach to treat LiCl-KCl waste for final disposal was adapted. In this study, a $SiO_2-Al_2O_3-P_2O_5$ (SAP) inorganic composite as a dechlorination agent was prepared by a conventional sol-gel process. By using a series of SAPs, the dechlorination behavior and consolidation of reaction products were investigated. Different from LiCl waste, the dechlorination reaction occurred mainly at two temperature ranges. The thermogravimetric test indicated that the first reaction range was about $400^{\circ}C$ for LiCl and the second was about $700^{\circ}C$ for KCl. The SAP 1071 (Si/Al/P=1/0.75/1 in molar) was found to be the most favorable SAP as a dechlorination agent under given conditions. The consolidation test revealed that the bulk shape and the densification of consolidated forms depended on the SAP/Salt ratios. The leaching test by PCT-A method was performed to evaluate the durability of consolidated forms. This study provided the basic information on the dechlorination approach. Based on the experimental results, the dechlorination method using a $SiO_2-Al_2O_3-P_2O_5$ (SAP) could be considered as one of alternatives for the immobilization of waste salt.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2015

A commercially available copper mesh was investigated as an iodine off-gas capturing medium for pyroprocessing, with an aim to replace costly silver based adsorbents. Theoretical calculation results suggested that the reaction between metallic copper and gaseous iodine will occur spontaneously to produce copper iodide in the temperature range of 100 ~ 500℃. The effect of the reaction temperature on iodine capturing efficiency was investigated by experimentation, and it was found that 5 and 6 wt% of iodine (initial mass 2.0 g) was captured by a single copper mesh (0.26 g) at 300 and 400℃, respectively. The repeated experimental results also suggested that copper utilization can be increased with the help of the spontaneous detachment of the reaction product (CuI) from a copper mesh. The formation of the CuI phase was confirmed using the X-ray diffraction technique, and the surface morphology of the reaction product was observed using scanning electron microscopy.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.207-215
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• 2020

The feasibility of rare earth (RE) removal process via oxidation reactions with UCl₃ was investigated using the HSC Chemistry code to reduce the concentrations of RE in transuranic (TRU) products. The composition and thermodynamic data of TRU and RE elements contained in the reference spent fuel were examined. The reactivity was evaluated by calculating equilibrium data considering oxidation reactions with UCl₃. Both RE removal rate and TRU recovery rate were evaluated for the two cases, wherein TRU products with different RE concentrations were used. When TRU products were reacted with UCl₃, selective oxidation was driven by the difference in the Gibbs free energy of each element. The calculation results imply that the TRU/RE ratio of the final product can be increased by removing RE elements while maintaining the maximum recovery rate of TRU, which is accomplished by controlling the amount of UCl₃ injected. Since the results of this study are based on thermodynamic equilibrium data, there are many limitations to apply to the actual process. However, it is expected to be used as an important data for the process design to supply the TRU product of pyroprocessing to SFR's fuel demanding low RE concentrations.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.45-51
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• 2008

Fireworks display is called as younwha in korean, pokjuk in chinese, hanabi in japanese and fireworks display in English. Fireworks is a kind of art calling as engineering art program that presents its artistic sense by making up light, sound, heat, form, smoke, smoke screen, time delay and kinetic energy etc. which are made by combustion and deflagrations of explosives. Korea's fireworks skill is world class. In 1980s, we already developed the skills. After 2010 year, It would develop as Nano-biotechnology considering its environmental safety passing by 1990s' grow fully step. After pleasant fireworks, it requires a environmental pollution control measure, ability of emergency state control, management of storing place, a blind shell and waste disposal and citizenship elevation etc. This paper indicated around fireworks the present conditions, environmental pollution buzz, direction of development and plan.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.7-17
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• 2014

Molten salt electrorefining process achieves uranium deposits at cathode using an electrochemical processing of spent nuclear fuel. In order to recover pure uranium from cathode deposit containing about 30wt% salt, the adhered salt should be removed by cathode process (CP). The CP has been regarded as one of the bottle-neck of the pyroprocess as the large amount of uranium is treated in this step and the operation parameters are crucial to determine the final purity of the product. Currently, related research activities are mainly based on experiments consequently it is hard to observe processing variables such as temperature, pressure and salt gas behavior during the operation of the cathode process. Hence, in this study operation procedure of cathode process is numerically described by using appropriate mathematical model. The key parameters of this research are the amount of evaporation at the distillation part, diffusion coefficient of gas phase salt in cathode processor and phase change rate at condensation part. Each of these conditions were composed by Hertz-Langmuir equation, Chapman-Enskog theory, and interphase mass flow application in ANSYS-CFX. And physical properties of salt were taken from the data base in HSC Chemistry. In this study, calculation results on the salt gas behavior and optimal operating condition are discussed. The numerical analysis results could be used to closely understand the physical phenomenon during CP and for further scale up to commercial level.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.347-353
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• 2010

Source terms of metal waste comprising a spent fuel assembly are relatively important when the spent fuel is pyroprocessed, because cesium, strontium, and transuranics are not a concern any more in the aspect of source term of permanent disposal. In this study, characteristics of radiation source terms for each structural component in spent fuel assembly was analyzed by using ORIGEN-S with a assumption that 10 metric tons of uranium is pyroprocessed. At first, mass and volume for each structural component of the fuel assembly were calculated in detail. Activation cross section library was generated by using KENO-VI/ORIGEN-S module for top-end piece and bottom-end piece, because those are located at outer core with different neutron spectrum compared to that of inner core. As a result, values of radioactivity, decay heat, and hazard index were reveled to be $1.40{\times}10^{15}$ Bequerels, 236 Watts, $4.34{\times}10^9m^3$-water, respectively, at 10 years after discharge. Those values correspond to 0.7 %, 1.1 %, 0.1 %, respectively, compared to that of spent fuel. Inconel 718 grid plate was shown to be the most important component in the all aspects of radioactivity, decay heat, and hazard index although the mass occupies only 1 % of the total. It was also shown that if the Inconel 718 grid plate is managed separately, the radioactivity and hazard index of metal waste could be decreased to 20~45 % and 30~45 %, respectively. As a whole, decay heat of metal waste was shown to be negligible in the aspect of disposal system design, while the radioactivity and hazard index are important.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2013

The recovery of Zr from Zircaloy-4 (Zry-4) cladding hulls using a chlorination method was demonstrated for complete conversion of Zr into $ZrCl_4$. A chlorination reaction was performed by reacting Zry-4 hulls for 8 h under a 70 cc/min $Cl_2$ + 70 cc/min Ar flow at $380^{\circ}C$. The initial weight of the reactant (51.7 g) decreased to 0.49 g after 8 h of operation, which is only 0.95wt% of the initial weight. The weight of the total reaction products was 121.7 g with a high Zr purity of 99.80wt%. Fe and Sn were identified as major (0.18wt%) and minor (0.02wt%) impurities of the reaction products, respectively. It was also shown that Zr exhibited a high recovery ratio of 96.95wt% with a relatively small experimental loss of 2.34wt%. Observation of the reaction residues revealed that the chlorination reaction was dominant along the longitudinal direction, and surface oxide layers remained as reaction residues. The high purity and recovery ratio of Zr proposed the feasibility of the chlorination technique as an effective hull waste treatment method.