As temporary storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) are becoming saturated, there is a growing interest in finding solutions for treating SNF, which is recognized as an urgent task. Although direct disposal is a common method for handling SNF, it results in the entire fuel assembly being classified as high-level waste, which increases the burden of disposal. Therefore, it is necessary to develop SNF treatment technologies that can minimize the disposal burden while improving long-term storage safety, and this requires continuous efforts from a national policy perspective. In this context, this study focused on reducing the volume of high-level waste from light water reactor fuel by separating uranium, which represents the majority of SNF. We confirmed the chlorination characteristics of uranium (U), rare earth (RE), and strontium (Sr) oxides with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) in previous study. Therefore, we prepared U-RE-SrOx simulated fuel by pelletizing each elements which was sintered at high temperature. The sintered fuel was again powdered by heating under air environment. The powdered fuel was reacted with NH4Cl to selectively chlorinate the RE and Sr elements for the separation. We will share and discuss the detailed results of our study.

• Dalsung Yoon(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
• Ju ho Lee(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
• Seungwoo Paek(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
• Sang-Kwon Lee(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
• Taeho Kim(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
• Chang Hwa Lee(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)) Corresponding author