Argonne to work with Shine on cost-effective recycling technology

With the goal of creating a recycling method that industry can adopt in a cost-effective and scalable way, the project will test separations equipment, primarily Argonne’s centrifugal contactors, that could be used in large-scale facilities to isolate nuclear materials for industrial use.

As part of its four-phase approach to fusion technology development, Shine intends to adapt its chemical separation capabilities to the large-scale recycling of high-level radioactive waste and eventually the large-scale transmutation of nuclear waste through the fusion process.

“Bridging scientific research and industrial implementation is critical to overcoming complex challenges,” said Candido Pereira, deputy division director for Argonne’s Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies (CFCT) Division. “Our team is committed to bringing Argonne’s expertise, technologies, and research capabilities to support the private sector with world-class solutions.”

The team: Peter Tkac, a nuclear chemist and manager of the Radiochemistry Group in Argonne’s CFCT Division, is leading the project, which is being supported by the DOE’s Office of Technology Commercialization through a Technology Commercialization Fund award. The collaboration between Argonne and Shine is conducted under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement.

“It’s very important that we optimize separation steps and develop a process that doesn’t produce a pure plutonium stream,” Tkac said, pointing to the risks and burdens of securing, storing or disposing of pure plutonium. “In our lab-scale setting, we are able to test separations processes under conditions that mimic the high-radiation environments a recycling facility would face.”

To mimic radiation effects in controlled manner, Tkac’s team uses a Van de Graaff electron accelerator at Argonne to simulate how nuclear fuel behaves during processing.

The technology: According to Argonne, its centrifugal contactor technology will be a key component of the research. The technology is adaptable: researchers use 3D printers to build custom parts, allowing fast, low-cost testing of different designs. Prototypes are tested under real chemical conditions and produce minimal radioactive waste, making them ideal for early development before industrial scale-up.

“Argonne-designed centrifugal contactor technology allows for separation of very complex mixtures efficiently, effectively, and with a small footprint,” Tkac explained. “We have a good strategy for recycling nuclear fuel and the approach taken will depend on the nuclear reactor technologies selected for energy production.”

“In the past, SHINE worked with Argonne on processes that improve the production of therapeutic and diagnostic medical isotopes,” said Ross Radel, Shine’s chief technology officer. “The resulting advances save lives domestically and around the globe, and we’re confident that a similar collaboration to reduce waste by way of recycling used nuclear fuel will remove a major roadblock to the expansion of nuclear power and ensure an abundant supply of energy for the future.”