26.08.2015   Advanced separation techniques for nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment

Design and installation of process equipment

10.3.1 Design characteristics of pyroprocess equipment

As for aqueous reprocessing, an economically feasible facility should have a throughput as much as several hundred tons HM/y. On the other hand, a pyrochemical reprocessing facility is expected to be economically feasible with a throughput of several tens of tons HM/y, because the processing equipment can handle a larger amount of actinides compared with aqueous reprocessing, owing to the difference in the nuclear criticality issue. Once

Table 10.3 Standard Gibbs free energy of formation at 650 °C*

Oxide

AGf° (kJ/mol-O)

UO2

-462.6

Pu2O3

-471.8

Li2O

-475.8

Am2O3

-487.8

La2O3

-509.6

Ce2O3

-506.1

Pr2O3

-515.5

Nd2O3

-515.1

Sm2O3

-518.0

Gd2O3

-520.7

Y2O3

-545.6

* According to the thermodynamic database MALT-II assessed by Japan Calorimetry Society (Japan Calorimetry Society, 1992).

the pyrochemical process equipment has been demonstrated for several tens of tons HM/y, commercial facilities of several hundred tons HM/y can be realized by multiplexing the process equipment. Hence, the first phase of development is focused on demonstrating the feasibility of engineering — scale equipment capable of dealing with several tens of kg HM/batch (several tons HM/y), and the second phase is to increase throughput by design improvements, since an increase in throughput will directly improve the economies of processing. In this section, development of the main process equipment (described in the flowcharts in the previous section) is reported.