Development of new hydrometallurgical processes for actinide recovery: GANEX concept
Abstract
In the future, energy producing systems will be mainly based on the use of nuclear reactors of the 4 th generation, which will be developed to fulfil some criteria such as sustainability, economic efficiency, safety and resistance to proliferation risks. As a consequence, these reactors will burn fuels containing a large range of actinide elements: major actinides, such as U and Pu, but also minor actinides, such as Np, Am and Cm. This implies to master the management of all actinide elements within the overall fuel cycle and thus to develop new processes for their selective recovery and purification. This article describes the options, currently studied at CEA, to selectively recover all actinides together from the fission products by implementing hydrometallurgical processes, in order to further convert them into new targets or recycled fuels.
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