Hydrometallurgical Reprocessing of BREST-OD-300 Mixed Uranium-plutonium Nuclear Fuel

Abstract

The duration of external fuel cycle of BREST-OD-300 reactor with mixed U-Pu nitride fuel (MNIT) including hydrometallurgical reprocessing should not exceed 3 years. An average burnup of the fuel should be 6% of heavy metal (HM) with the potential increase up to 10% HM. Therefore, the technology should provide the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) after less than 2 years cooling time and with fissile materials (FM) content of 10 – 15%. Pellets technology has been chosen for the MNIT fuel production. That means necessity to receive the recycled actinides oxides of high purification coefficient (∼ 106). Currently on a laboratory scale, the following process stages have been tested on the real products: actinide oxides production and rare-earth and trans-plutonium elements separation. Moreover, on a pilot scale the process of high level radioactive waste (HLW) and intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) concentration by evaporation has been tested, as well as the Am-Cm separation. In 2015, the design of the MNIT SNF reprocessing facility has been started, placed at the JSC Siberian Chemical Plant site as a part of the pilot demonstration power complex (PDPC) with BREST-OD-300 reactor. MNIT SNF reprocessing plant (RP) should be put in operation after 2020.