Advances in Technology and Process in the Spent Fuel Reprocessing Operations in France

Abstract

France has resolutely chosen the reprocessing-recycling option for the fuel cycle back end. For that purpose, Cogema, the world's leading company in the field of the nuclear fuel cycle, owns and operates three reprocessing plants located in Marcoule (UP) and La Hague (UP2 and UP3). Reprocessing operations, industrially mastered for many years, remain nevertheless complex and delicate due to the potential risks of the handled products and the high degree of quality required for viability, safety. security and costs. From the point of view of the technologies and processes implemented in the reprocessing plants a very large panoply of mechanical and chemical engineering operations are to be used: UP3, the new plant that entered on stream last August is a good demonstration of the fact that the techniques of chemical metallurgy can be successfully adapted to the reprocessing specific constraints. In that context two specific examples are given of criticality safe and high capacity new equipment specially developed by the CEA to be installed in UP3: (i) the rotary dissolver, and (ii) annular pulsed columns.