The Korea government decided to shut down Kori-1 and Wolsung-1 nuclear power plants (NPPs) in 2017 and 2019, respectively, and their decommissioning plans are underway. Decommissioning of a NPP generates various types of radioactive wastes such as concrete, metal, liquid, plastic, paper, and clothe. Among the various radioactive wastes, we focused on radioactive-combustible waste due to its large amount (10,000–40,000 drums/NPP) and environmental issues. Incineration has been the traditional way to minimize volume of combustible waste, however, it is no longer available for this amount of waste. Accordingly, an alternative technique is required which can accomplish both high volume reduction and low emission of carbon dioxide. Recently, KAERI proposed a new decontamination process for volume reduction of radioactivecombustible waste generated during operation and decommissioning of NPPs. This thermochemical process operates via serial steps of carbonization-chlorination-solidification. The key function of the thermochemical decontamination process is to selectively recover and solidify radioactive metals so that radioactivity of the decontaminated carbon meets the release criteria. In this work, a preliminary version of mass flow diagram of the thermochemical decontamination process was established for representative wastes. Mass balance of each step was calculated based on physical and chemical properties of each constituent atoms. The mass flow diagram provides a platform to organize experimental results leading to key information of the process such as the final decontamination factor and radioactivity of each product.

The nanostructured cerium oxide powders were synthesized by spray thermal decomposition process for the use as the raw materials of resistive oxygen sensor. The synthesis routes consisted of 1) spray drying of water based organic solution made from cerium nitrate hydrate () and 2) heat treatment of spray dried precursor powders at in air atmosphere to remove the volatile components and identically to oxidize the cerium component. The produced powders have shown the loose structure agglomerated with extremely fine cerium oxide particles with about 15 nm and very high specific surface area (). The oxygen sensitivity, n ( and the response time, measured at in the sample sintered at , were about 0.25 and 3 seconds, respectively, which had much higher performances than those known in micron or sized sensors.

Nanostructured ceria powder was synthesized by a thermochemical process and investigated its applicability for an oxygen gas sensor. An amorphous precursor powders prepared by spray drying a cerium-nitrate solution were transformed successfully into nanostructured ceria by heat-treatment in air atmosphere. The powders were a loose agglomerated structure with extremely fine particles about 15 nm in size, resulting in a very high specific surface area . The oxygen sensitivity and the response time measured at sintered sample at was about -0.25 and very short, i.e., seconds, respectively.

원자력 발전의 고온 가스로(high temperature gas-cooled reactor, HTGR)의 냉각제로 사용되는 He가스의 열에너지를 이용하여 물을 분해해서 수소를 생산하는 "열화학적 수소제조 IS프로세스"에 대해 설명하였다. 특히, 분리막 기술의 이용에 관한 연구를 중점으로 정리하였다. 고온 원자력 열에너지를 이용한 열화학적 수소 제조법은 실현 가능한 단계까지 왔다고 생각되며, 아직 연구 개발 과제가 많이 남아 있지만, 미래의 청정에너지 중의 하나인 수소를 대량 생산할 수 있는 가능성을 갖고 있다.

Nanostructured Cu-AlO composite powders were synthesized by thermochemical process. The synthesis procedures are 1) preparation of precursor powder by spray drying of solution made from water-soluble copper and aluminum nitrates, 2) air heat treatments to evaporate volatile components in the precursor powder and synthesis of nano-structured CuO + O, and 3) CuO reduction by hydrogen into pure Cu. The suggested procedures stimulated the formation of the gamma-AlO, and different alumina formation behaviors appeared with various heat treating temperatures. The mean particle size of the final Cu/AlO composite powders produced was 20 nm, and the electrical conductivity and hardness in the hot-extruded bulk were competitive with Cu/AlO composite by the conventional internal oxidation process