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Method for waste treatment

A waste and oxide technology, applied in nuclear engineering, radioactive purification, etc., can solve the problems of high equipment cost and operating cost, and achieve the effect of improving efficiency, reducing cost and reducing harm.

Inactive Publication Date: 2003-12-03
BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS PLC
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Processing zirconium waste and processing waste from nuclear fission products constitute two separate steps in the current recycling cycle, which are extremely expensive both in terms of equipment and operating costs

Method used

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Embodiment Construction

[0033] Refer below figure 1 The flow diagram shown describes the method of the first embodiment of the invention. The source of cladding for zirconium alloy fuel rods is marked 10. The cladding is brought into solution by electrochemical dissolution 12, i.e. the cladding becomes anodic in the nitric acid electrolyte and a current is passed through the metal. This step transfers the zirconium to zirconium nitrate14. However, in the dissolution step 12, a substantial amount of the zirconium alloy is converted directly to oxides which form a sludge at the bottom of the dissolution tank, which is subsequently withdrawn and added to a later step in the process. The zirconium nitrate is then decomposed into oxides 18 by one or more techniques including direct heating, fluidized bed, plasma arc or microwave assisted thermal decomposition 16 . Then in a mixing step 20, the oxide 18 is mixed with a sol of a gel-forming chemical, in this case diluted with ethanol and modified with an...

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Abstract

A process for treatment of zirconium-based metal waste in the form of a solution is described, the process including the steps of converting said solution of said metal into an oxide of said zirconium-based metal; forming a green body of said oxide by pelletising, extruding or casting and sintering said oxide to form solid articles.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a method of treating wastes of zirconium-based metals, particularly, but not exclusively, wastes resulting from the recycling of nuclear fuel. technical background [0002] Fuel rods for nuclear installations consist of a core of uranium-rich material with an outer shell or cladding of a zirconium-based alloy. Currently, when recycling spent fuel rods, the rods are cut into shorter lengths and treated with nitric acid to dissolve the used fuel core, leaving the cladding, which will not be corroded by nitric acid. Zirconium alloy fragments constitute what is commonly referred to as intermediate-level waste, which must be stored safely for many years. The current method of disposing of this waste is to crush the pieces and seal them in canisters as metal in concrete slurry. [0003] Recycling radioactive fuel also has problems related to the isolation and disposal of nuclear fission products produced during nuclear reac...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): C04B35/486C04B35/622C04B35/624G21F9/14G21F9/16G21F9/30
CPCC04B2235/3418G21F9/16C04B2235/441C04B35/48C04B2235/44C04B2235/3217C04B35/624C04B35/486C04B2235/404C04B35/62204G21F9/14C04B35/62655C04B2235/3244Y02W30/50
Inventor P·帕克斯J·W·霍布斯S·劳森
Owner BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS PLC