Oak Ridge researchers find promise in nuclear recycling

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Research engineers at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have successfully recycled pieces of old nuclear fuel to produce new fuel pellets for nuclear reactors -- demonstrating techniques considered important to the expansion of nuclear power.Reprocessing nuclear fuel is at the heart of the Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a program designed to produce more energy while curbing the generation of nuclear waste and reducing the risk of weapons proliferation. The goal is to safely share technologies and services for energy security with partner nations.Jeff Binder, the Energy Partnership program manager at Oak Ridge, said the research team was able to chemically extract the ingredients for making nuclear fuel without isolating the plutonium. That addresses a concern that fuel reprocessing could make it easier to divert fissionable plutonium for use in a nuclear bomb, he said.Elisabeth Walker and Ray Vedder of Oak Ridge's Nuclear Science & Technology Division used a "co-extraction" process to separate a mixture of plutonium, neptunium and uranium from the rest of the spent nuclear fuel. After that, they used an Oak Ridge-developed technique called modified direct denitration to convert the nuclear material from a solution in nitric acid to a solid oxide powder. Then, fuel pellets were formed.The pellets were recycled from spent fuel previously used at the Dresden Nuclear Power Plant in Illinois, Binder said. He called it a significant milestone."These pellets we've made are really proof of principle," Binder said Wednesday. Additional studies will be done to better characterize the mixed-oxide pellets and evaluate their structure and properties, he said.The Oak Ridge lab is conducting a pilot project to demonstrate various methods and technologies needed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, make fresh fuel from the recycled products and prepare waste elements for disposal.The work is part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program, which was launched in 2006 and dogged by controversy. Some critics have suggested that the Bush effort could actually increase the risk of nuclear proliferation rather than reduce it. Congress has significantly cut the administration's funding requests, providing money for continued research but refusing to fund large-scale technology demonstration projects.Oak Ridge's work with radioactive materials is taking place in heavily shielded hot cells at the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center, which is located adjacent to the High Flux Isotope Reactor.The first recycled fuel pellets produced at Oak Ridge would be suitable for a light-water nuclear reactor, such as those used for commercial power generation in the United States, Binder said. In upcoming tests, lab researchers plan to increase the amount of fissionable material to a level that would be of use in other types of reactors, he said.Binder said the lab expects to get some additional spent nuclear fuel in the near future. The lab tests will have a benefit to industry if the United States decides to establish a commercial-scale capability for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, which currently is stored at reactor sites around the country.Frank Munger is a senior writer at the Knoxville News-Sentinel