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Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
Darryl D. Siemer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 185 | Number 1 | January 2014 | Pages 100-108
Technical Note | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-164
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fuel reprocessing (recycling) system invoked by the developers of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's molten salt–based breeder (of 233U from 232Th) reactor (MSBR) would generate high-level reprocessing waste consisting of ∼3 mol % fission product fluoride salts in a matrix consisting primarily of sodium and potassium fluoride salts. This technical note discusses a management scenario for such waste that invokes the following steps: (a) mixing of the waste salt with dilute nitric acid with a pug mill; (b) volatilization/separation of the bulk of the fluoride as hydrofluoric acid (HF) with a wiped film evaporator; (c) vitrification of the thus “converted” (to nitrate) salt waste to an iron phosphate glass waste form with a stirred melter; (d) reduction of the nitric acid/NOx in the combined off-gas to elemental nitrogen with hot charcoal; (e) condensation of the water and HF in the reduced off-gas; (f) neutralization of that solution with an alkali (sodium and/or lithium and/or potassium) hydroxide; (g) drying of that solution to produce the fluoride salts utilized by the process; and finally, (h) off-gas disposal after treatment implemented with a condenser, wet electrostatic precipitator, catalytic converter, and high-efficiency particulate air filters. This scenario's advantages relative to those that invoke the preparation of a synthetic fluoride mineral (cation-substituted fluorapatite) waste form include much higher effective waste loading, lower cost, and a product (glass) more consistent with stakeholder expectations.