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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Yuichiro Asano, Noriko Asanuma, Toshihiko Ito, Makoto Kataoka, Shinya Fujino, Tomoo Yamamura, Wataru Sugiyama, Hiroshi Tomiyasu, Kunihiko Mizumachi, Yasuhisa Ikeda, Yukio Wada, Masami Asou
Nuclear Technology | Volume 120 | Number 3 | December 1997 | Pages 198-210
Technical Paper | Enrichment and Reprocessing System | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35411
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new reprocessing system for spent nuclear fuels based on a precipitation method is proposed to recover uranium and transuranium elements from spent nuclear fuels in high ratios and to achieve extreme safety without any potential dangers. Experiments were carried out for a simulated fuel solution containing uranium and 17 major elements. The main reprocessing processes are as follows: (a) dissolution of U02 fuel under mild conditions; (b) neutralization of the dissolved fuel solution with Na2C03-NaHC03 mixed solutions, followed by the separation of precipitated fission products by centrifugation; (c) separation of cesium by a precipitation method using a tetraphenylborate ion; and (d) recovery of uranium (U) as a precipitate of the hydrolyzed compound from an alkaline solution. As a result, 99.95% of the U was recovered with the least amount of fission products, i.e., 10-5 g or even less in the recovered 1 g of U with the only exceptions being zirconium and molybdenum.