An overview of solvent extraction processes developed in Europe for advanced nuclear fuel recycling, Part 2 — homogeneous recycling
Review article, 2022

The hydrometallurgical separation concepts for the recycling of irradiated nuclear fuels developed in Europe are presented and discussed. Whilst Part 1 of the review focused on concepts for heterogeneous recycling of minor actinides, this article focuses on group recycling of transuranic actinides, which would support homogeneous recycling scenarios. Most of these concepts were developed within European collaborative projects and involve solvent extraction processes separating all the actinides (U-Cm) in two cycles. The first cycle uses a monoamide extractant to recover uranium leaving all the transuranic actinides in the aqueous raffinate with the fission products. The second cycle aims for a group recovery of the transuranium elements and several strategies have been proposed for this stage. In this review article, the various solvent extraction processes are summarised and the key features of the process schemes are compared.

GANEX

homogeneous recycling

solvent extraction

actinides

Nuclear fuel

Author

Thea Lyseid Authen

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Jean Marc Adnet

University of Montpellier

Stéphane Bourg

University of Montpellier

Michael Carrott

National Nuclear Laboratory

Christian Ekberg

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Hitos Galán

Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (Ciemat)

A. Geist

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Philippe Guilbaud

University of Montpellier

Manuel Miguirditchian

University of Montpellier

G. Modolo

Forschungszentrum Jülich

Chris Rhodes

National Nuclear Laboratory

A. Wilden

Forschungszentrum Jülich

R. Taylor

National Nuclear Laboratory

Separation Science and Technology

0149-6395 (ISSN) 1520-5754 (eISSN)

Vol. 57 11 1724-1744

GEN IV Integrated Oxide fuels recycling strategies (GENIORS)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/755171), 2017-01-01 -- 2022-12-31.

Subject Categories

Analytical Chemistry

Chemical Process Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Areas of Advance

Energy

DOI

10.1080/01496395.2021.2001531

More information

Latest update

7/4/2022 1