Potential pathways for fluorine recycling in the nuclear industry

Jean-Marc Borgard (1) , B. Gwinner (1)

1 SCCME - Service de la Corrosion et du Comportement des Matériaux dans leur Environnement

One of the major uses for fluorine is in the nuclear industry, to make the gaseous uranium hexafluoride, needed for the enrichment process. As fluorine free uranium is used for fuel manufacture, all fluor contained in uranium hexafluoride could theorically be recycled back for uranium fluoration into hexafluoride (figure1).. We will discuss several options for this recycling in terms of safety, energetic cost and corrosion issues.

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Jean-Marc Borgard, B. Gwinner. Potential pathways for fluorine recycling in the nuclear industry. IUPAC 2019, Jul 2019, Paris, France. ⟨cea-02468694⟩