Previous Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) studies were made to assess the effects of the existing accumulation of LWR spent fuel in the United States on the capability to partition/transmute actinides using existing and advanced LWRs. The concept of treating the “oldest fuel first” indicated that significant advantages could be gained in both partitioning, transmutation, and in overall cos...

The article presents a plasma chemical technology for processing solid fuels, using examples of bituminous and brown coals. Thermodynamic and experimental investigation of the technology was made. The technology allows producing synthesis gas from the coal organic mass and valuable components (technical silicon, ferrosilicon, aluminum, and carbon silicon, as well as microelements of rare metals...

Effective utilization of byproducts can affect the profitability of kraft pulping to produce cellulosic fibers from wood. This review considers opportunities to use tall oil components, obtained from kraft pulping, as a source of raw material for biodiesel fuel, or as a source of additives for petrodiesel. Considerable progress has been achieved with respect to converting vegetable oils to dies...

The nuclear fuel cycle can be truly closed by supp lementing today’s thermal reactors with fast reactors, which can use as fuel the heavy, fissionable isotopes that accumulate in thermal-reactor fuel. In a fully closed cycle, the waste for disposal consists only of fission products with trace amounts of actinides. Eliminating the transuranics reduces the heat load in the repository, increasing ...

Worldwide concerns about sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions from ships are motivating the replacement of marine residual oil (RO) with cleaner, lower-sulfur fuels, such as marine gas oil (MGO) and marine diesel oil (MDO). Vessel operators can use MGO and MDO directly or blended with RO to achieve environmental and economic objectives. Although expected to be much cleaner in terms of criteria pollutan...

Spray pyrolysis has been used to prepare La0.6 Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ thin film cathodes for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications. The films are polycrystalline with nano-meter sized grains and less than 1 μm in thickness. Deposition parameters for film deposition have been established. The ratio of deposition temperature to solvent boiling point is found to be the most important processing p...