Abstract
Radioactive isotopes 137Cs and 90Sr, two significant fission products that are usually carried into High Level Waste (HLW) during spent nuclear fuel reprocessing are suggested to be removed from HLW in order to reduce the volume of HLW and then make nuclear energy more clean and sustainable. A variety of separation techniques, including solvent extraction, have been developed for the removal of 137Cs and 90Sr from HLW. Among those developed separation techniques, solvent extraction is more applicable and promising, particularly for acidic HLW. This article reviews the scientific progress as well as application developments of the solvent extraction method for the separation of strontium and cesium from HLW in the last decade.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Bruce A. Moyer who helped a lot in preparing this article. Also, grateful thanks to Dr. Guoxin Tian, for his help in revising this article. This work was supported by the National 863 Program for its Nuclear Fuel Cycling and Nuclear Safety Technology Project under Contract 2009AA050703.