Pyroprocessing Technology Development at Kaeri

Pyroprocessing was originally developed for the recycling of the metal fuel from a fast reactor. It was noted that pyroprocessing can be modified by an oxide reduction process enabling treatment of spent nuclear fuels from a commercial light water reactor (LWR) which is in an oxide form. Pyroprocessing treatment can reduce the volume, radioactivity, and heat load of the LWR spent fuels [1]. In addition, pyroprocessing based on the group recovery of TRU can provide metal fuels for the sodium cooled fast reactor while keeping intrinsic proliferation resistance. KAERI has been developing pyroprocessing since 1997. The concept development, bench scale testing, and laboratory scale key unit process demonstration were carried out by 2006. From 2007 to 2011, the focus moved to the design and construction of an engineering scale integrated system. The PyroProcess Integrated inactive Demonstration facility (PRIDE) will be constructed by early 2012. The process flow diagram consists of head-end processes (decladding, voloxidation, oxide feed preparation), electrochemical processes (oxide reduction, electrorefining, electrowinning), and waste treatment processes as shown in Fig. 1.