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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
G. I. Cathers
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 2 | Number 6 | November 1957 | Pages 768-777
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE57-A35491
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A promising nonaqueous process for the recovery of uranium from spent fuel elements is under development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This process consists of dissolution of the fuel element in a fluoride melt by hydrofluorination at 600 to 700°C, direct fluorination with fluorine for the production and volatilization of UF6, with further decontamination of the product UF6 from fission product activity being secured in a NaF absorption-desorption step. Good decontamination is obtained in the fluorination step due to the low volatility of most of the fission product fluorides. An over-all decontamination factor greater than 106 with adequate uranium recovery has been demonstrated in laboratory scale tests using a double bed procedure for the NaF step. A pilot plant has been constructed for testing the process with various heterogeneous fuel elements. The engineering and operational features of the pilot plant are described.
