Spent nuclear fuel could become easier to recycle with a high-speed chemical separation system being developed by Argonne National Laboratory, SHINE and Case Western Reserve University.
The partners are working to adapt Argonne’s Packed Centrifugal Equipment for Radiochemical Separation, or PaCERS, for SHINE’s planned nuclear fuel recycling process. The technology uses rapid rotation to create centrifugal forces far stronger than normal gravity, helping separate radioactive materials more efficiently.
Unlike conventional approaches that can require large amounts of solvent and multiple processing stages, PaCERS is designed as a high-throughput, lower-solvent system. The goal is to make the chemical separation steps involved in nuclear fuel recycling more practical and economical.
The collaboration is being carried out through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy CURIE Program, with Case Western Reserve University leading additional funding and SHINE participating as a subcontractor.
Spinning waste into resources
One target is the separation of strontium-90 and americium-241, radioactive isotopes that can have uses in medicine, manufacturing and advanced power systems. The system will also be used to help recover minor actinides, a group of long-lived radioactive materials left behind after other elements have been extracted from spent fuel.
That could give nuclear fuel recycling a broader purpose than simply recovering uranium and plutonium. Instead, different components of spent fuel could be separated and directed toward applications where they have value.
“Spent nuclear fuel is a tremendous resource, having many valuable materials that can be recovered instead of stored or even worse, disposed of. We already separate radioactive materials to produce medical isotopes today, and we’re applying that same expertise to help push PaCERS toward practical use,” said Ross Radel, CTO of SHINE. “It’s another piece of the work we’re doing to make nuclear energy effectively renewable.”
Spent nuclear fuel is often treated as a waste-management problem, but it still contains substantial usable energy and materials. SHINE says spent fuel retains about 90 percent of its energy potential, while its radioactive components can also serve other industrial purposes.
Centrifuges target nuclear bottleneck
The PaCERS system could become particularly useful because chemical separation is a critical part of recycling spent fuel. Making those steps faster and less resource-intensive could help lower the cost of processing material through multiple stages.
SHINE is also pursuing a separate effort to use fusion-generated neutrons to transmute long-lived radioactive isotopes. The company says the approach could eventually reduce the period for which some nuclear waste must remain isolated from millennia to decades.
The work forms part of SHINE’s broader REDUCE process, short for Recover Elements – Destroy Undesirables – Create Energy. The company is targeting a commercial pilot for recycling used nuclear fuel in the United States, where about 94,000 metric tons have accumulated.
The collaboration is intended to move PaCERS from research toward practical deployment in advanced nuclear fuel recycling facilities.