Potentialities of fluoride-based salts for specific nuclear reprocessing: Overview of the R&D program at CEA

Initially studied in the frame of the first French act on radioactive waste management (December 1991), the pyrotechnology is currently assessed by the Nuclear Energy Direction of the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) within the succeeding act (June 2006) as a potential alternative to hydrometallurgy for the reprocessing of targets or dedicated fuels (coming from accelerator-driven systems or ADS) considered for the minor actinides transmutation.The R&D program is mainly focused on the evaluation of the fluoride melts as interesting media for operating separation between the actinides and the fission products. Two separation techniques are currently evaluated; the first one uses the liquid–liquid extraction technique between molten fluoride and liquid metal at high temperature, the second one is based on an electrolytic separation in a molten fluoride melt. Both are promising in terms of separation efficiency. This paper gives an overview of the current studies and presents the last main experimental results.

Graphical abstractMolten fluorides and liquid metallic solvents (shown in the photograph after cooling) are assessed as interesting media for operating at high temperature separations between actinides and fission products in specific nuclear reprocessing.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide