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Abstract
The waste from nuclear power plants worldwide has to be isolated from man and his environment for about 100,000 years to equal the levels of natural uranium. If, however, the long-lived actinides could be separated from the spent fuel and transmuted, then the isolation time could be shortened to about 1,000 years. This does, however, require the selective separation of the actinides from the rest of the waste. Several processes exist for such a separation, of which one is the Group ActiNide Extraction (GANEX) process. A novel GANEX process has been developed at the Chalmers University of Technology utilizing the properties of already well known extractants by combining BTBP and TBP into one solvent. The stability provided by this GANEX solvent towards ageing, hydrolysis, and radiolysis has been investigated. The results show that the actinide distribution ratios are maintained after a long duration of contact with strong nitric acid. The solvent has also been found to be stable towards radiolysis up to 200 kGy in contact with 4 M nitric acid.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to extend their gratitude to ICHTJ in Warsaw, Poland for assisting with the irradiation process. They also wish to acknowledge the Swedish nuclear fuel and waste management company (SKB) and the European Union 7th Framework Program ACSEPT (project number: 211267) for funding this work.
Notes
IAEA General Conference (53)/INF/3, Fifty-third regular session, Item 18 of the provisional agenda, Report by the Director General, (GC(53)/1), Nuclear Technology Review, 2009.
