Reaction System Design for NO2 Oxidation of Used Nuclear Fuel for the FY17 Hot Test
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
A dry pretreatment process based on the oxidation of used nuclear fuel to convert it to a fine powder is being studied for the removal and capture of tritium and iodine before subsequent processing. The process converts oxide fuel into a fine powder at low temperature using NO2/O2 mixtures. The form of the powder product can be selected to be U3O8, UO3, or a nitrate by adjusting the processing conditions. All the fundamental tenets of the process have been successfully demonstrated as a proof of principle, and many aspects have been corroborated multiple times at laboratory scale. The present thrust is to develop the process to a technology-readiness level sufficient to evaluate and estimate the cost of an engineering-scale implementation. A previous roadmap analysis of the implementation determined that the most desirable approach would be based on kilogram-scale experiments using real fuel in parallel with multi-kg testing of prototype systems using surrogate material. Following the planned approach, kilogram-scale experiments will be conducted in FY 2017. This report describes the primary reaction system designs and the equipment that has been fabricated. Details related to instrumentation, data acquisition, and controls have been previously reported.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1338534
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/LTR-2016/355; AF5805010; NEAF327; TRN: US1701437
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Treatment of Problematic Reactive Metal Wastes Using the GeoMelt{sup R} In-Container Vitrification (ICV{sup TM}) Process - 20326
Treatment of Problematic Reactive Metal Wastes Using GeoMelt ICV - WM2020 Conference Paper