Review

  • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology
  • Volume 3(3); 2005
  • Article

Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology 2005;3(3):201-211. Published online: Sep, 30, 2005

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Preliminary Study on the Development of Alternative Methods for the Treatment of TRISO Fuels

  • Jong-Hyeon Lee ; Joon-Bo Shim ; Byung-Gil Ahn ; Sang-Woon Kwon ; Eung-Ho Kim
Abstract

In this study, conventional head-end processes of spent TRISO fuel have been reviewed to develope more effective treatment methods. The main concerns in the TRISO treatment are to effectively separate the carbon and SiC contained in the TRISO particles. The crush-burn scheme which was considered in the early stages of the development has been replaced by the crush-leach process because of 14C problems as a second waste being generated during the process. However, there are still many obstacles to overcome in the reported processes. Hence, innovative thermomechanical concepts and a molten salt electrochemical approach to breach the coating layers of the TRISO particle with a minimized amount of second waste are proposed in this paper and their principles are described in detail.

Keywords

TRISO,HTGR,head-end processing,thermal shock,breaching