• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.255-266
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• 2021

Solid-state mechanochemical reduction combined with subsequent melting consolidation was suggested as a technical option for the oxide reduction in pyroprocessing. Ni ingot was produced from NiO as a starting material through this technique while Li metal was used as a reducing agent. To determine the technical feasibility of this approach for pyroprocessing, which handles spent nuclear fuels, thermodynamic calculations of the phase stabilities of various metal oxides of U and other fission elements were made when several alkaline and alkali-earth metals were used as reducing agents. This technique is expected to be beneficial, not only for oxide reduction but also for other unit processes involved in pyroprocessing.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.29-40
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• 2013

Two different kinds of nuclear power plants produce a substantial amount of spent fuel annually in Korea. According to the current projection, it is expected that around 60,000 MtU of spent fuel will be produced from 36 PWR and APR reactors and 4 CANDU reactors by the end of 2089. In 2006, KAERI proposed a conceptual design of a geological disposal system (called KRS, Korean Reference disposal System for spent fuel) for PWR and CANDU spent fuel, as a product of a 4-year research project from 2003 to 2006. The major result of the research was that it was feasible to construct a direct disposal system for 20,000 MtU of PWR spent fuels and 16,000 MtU of CANDU spent fuel in the Korean peninsula. Recently, KAERI and MEST launched a project to develop an advanced fuel cycle based on the pyroprocessing of PWR spent fuel to reduce the amount of HLW and reuse the valuable fissile material in PWR spent fuel. Thus, KAERI has developed a geological disposal system for high-level waste from the pyroprocessing of PWR spent fuel since 2007. However, since no decision was made for the CANDU spent fuel, KAERI improved the disposal density of KRS by introducing several improved concepts for the disposal canister. In this paper, the geological disposal systems developed so far are briefly outlined. The amount and characteristics of spent fuel and HLW, 4 kinds of disposal canisters, the characteristics of a buffer with domestic Ca-bentonite, and the results of a thermal design of deposition holes and disposal tunnels are described. The different disposal systems are compared in terms of their disposal density.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.581-592
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• 2008

In this study, a conceptual pyroprocess flowsheet has been devised by combining several dry-type unit processes; its applicability as an alternative fuel cycle technology was analyzed. A key point in the evaluation of its applicability to the fuel cycle was the recovery yield of fissile materials from spent fuels as well as the proliferation resistance of the process. The recovery yields of uranium and transuranic elements (TRU) were obtained from a material balance for every unit process composing the whole pyroprocess. The material balances for several elemental groups of interest such as uranium, TRU, rare earth, gaseous fission products, and heat generating elements were calculated on the basis of the knowledge base that is available from domestic and foreign experimental results or technical information presented in open literature. The calculated result of the material balance revealed that uranium and TRU could be recovered at 98.0% and 97.0%, respectively, from a typical PWR spent fuel. Furthermore, the anticipated TRU product was found to emit a non-negligible level of $\gamma$-ray and a significantly higher level of neutrons compared to that of a typical plutonium product obtained from the PUREX process. The results indicate that the product from this conceptual pyroprocessing should be handled in a shielded cell and that this will contribute favorably to retaining proliferation resistance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 2008

Pyroprocessing is the optimal means of treating spent metal fuels from metal fast fuel reactors and is proposed as a potential option for GNEP in order to meet the requirements of the next generation fuel cycle. Currently, efforts for research and development are being made not only in the U.S., but also in Asian countries. Electrorefining, cathode processing by distillation, injection casting for fuel fabrication, and waste treatment must be verified by the use of genuine materials, and the engineering scale model of each device must be developed for commercial deployment. Pyroprocessing can be effectively extended to treat oxide fuels by applying an electrochemical reduction, for which various kinds of oxides are examined. A typical morphology change was observed following the electrochemical reduction, while the product composition was estimated through the process flow diagram. The products include much stronger radiation emitter than pure typical LWR Pu or weapon-grade Pu. Nevertheless, institutional measures are unavoidable to ensure proliferation-proof plant operations. The safeguard concept of a pyroprocessing plant was compared with that of a PUREX plant. The pyroprocessing is better adapted for a collocation system positioned with some reactors and a single processing facility rather than for a centralized reprocessing unit with a large scale throughput.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.247-258
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• 2011

Analysis of foreign and domestic patents for pyroprocessing technology of spent nuclear fuels was carried out in this study. The current status of pyroprocessing technology development in such countries as Korea, USA, Japan and EU was analyzed by classifying the patents for 1975 through 2009 according to registration country, assignee, calendar year and technology area. The major assignees' activity indices were compared in order to find out whether there is any concentrated area of technical details. Technology competitiveness of the countries was also investigated from the information of patent citation number and family size. Furthermore, some essential unit technologies required for the commercialization of pyroprocessing were derived and examined in the aspect of the state of art as well as the trend of technology development.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.47-50
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• 2014

Voloxidation is a process for converting $UO_2$ into $U_3O_8$ while removing some volatile products in spent fuels (SF). Various oxidative gas conditions including air and mixture of Ar and $O_2$ could be adopted for the process. The gas flows into a reactor under high temperature ($>500^{\circ}C$) and components of SF are reacted with the gas. SF is composed of various components such as actinides, lanthanides, and alkali metals. Therefore, it is of significance to understand their behavior during the reactions for process development. However, due to the limit of available experiments, phase diagram analysis should be preceded. TPP diagram is constructed with respect to temperature-pressure-pressure. It shows a stable phase depending on partial pressures of gas components as well as temperature. In this work, we investigated TPP diagrams for actinides, lanthanides and other oxides to determine stable oxide forms under different gas conditions. The results would be used to set up a material balance under a pyroprocessing scheme of SF and compare the gas conditions for the optimization of fission products removal.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.696-701
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• 2012

Non-aqueous processes have been developed for stable management and reuse of spent fuels. Nowadays, a plan for the management of spent fuel is being sought focusing on a non-aqueous process in Korea. Named as pyroprocessing, it includes an electrolytic reduction process using molten salt at high temperature for the spent fuels, which provides metallic product for a following electro-refining process. The electrolytic reduction process utilizes electrochemical reaction producing Li to convert oxides into metals in high temperature LiCl medium. Various kinds of elements in the spent fuels would be distributed in the system according to their respective reactivity with the reductant, Li, and the medium, LiCl. This study elucidates the reactions of the elements to understand the behavior of composite elements on the spent fuels by thermodynamic calculations. Uranium and transuranic are reduced into their metallic forms while rare-earth oxides, except for Eu, are stable against the reaction at a process temperature. This study also covers the tendency of reactions with respect to the temperature and, finally, estimates radioactivity and heat load on the distributed phases based on the reference spent fuel characteristics.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.7-10
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• 2013

Metal oxides are known as stable materials during a thermal treatment. However, some oxides are readily evaporated at high temperatures. A voloxidation process is a head-end process for a pyroprocessing dealing with spent nuclear fuels (SF). In SFs, fission productions are in the form of oxides and some of them would be evaporated during the voloxidation process. Therefore, it is of importance to analyse the vapor pressures of metal oxides so that the material flows throughout the pyroprocessing could be estimated. In this work, vapor pressures of relevant metal oxides were calculated and presented to draw a baseline on the material flow of the pyroprocessing.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.997-1001
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• 2016

Conductive ceramics are being developed to replace current Pt anodes in the electrolytic reduction of spent oxide fuels in pyroprocessing. While several conductive ceramics have shown promising electrochemical properties in small-scale experiments, their long-term stabilities have not yet been investigated. In this study, the chemical stability of conductive $La_{0.33}Sr_{0.67}MnO_3$ in $LiCl-Li_2O$ molten salt at $650^{\circ}C$ was investigated to examine its feasibility as an anode material. Dissolution of Sr at the anode surface led to structural collapse, thereby indicating that the lifetime of the $La_{0.33}Sr_{0.67}MnO_3$ anode is limited. The dissolution rate of Sr is likely to be influenced by the local environment around Sr in the perovskite framework.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.233-244
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• 2008

A conceptual design study for a pyroprocesing facility, has been carried out in this study, which is available for the recovery of uranium and transuranic elemental group(TRU), that is, reusable as a nuclear fuel especially in a next generation-type reactor. The scale of this facility has been chosen as 20 kg HM/batch, comparatively small engineering size in order to collect scale-up data for the design of a commercial facility as well as to get operational experience. The spent fuel to be handled in this process is as follows : 3.5 % enriched uranium fuel, 35,000MWd/tU and 5-year cooled. The major items considered in the conceptual study are a building lay-out including various hot cells, safety management of the process operation in conjunction with material balance control, radiation safety, inert atmosphere control in shielded hot cells, and criticality control of uranium and TRU products.