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Effectiveness of Sodium Hydroxide Pretreatment in Enhancing Fission Product Removal During Alkaline Spent Fuel Reprocessing

  • Gosai A.M. Abdelgader*
  • , Caishan Jiao
  • , Mingjian He
  • , Haofan Fang
  • , A. A. Waeel Kamal
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • College of Nuclear Science and Technology, Harbin Engineering University
  • Sudan Atomic Energy Commission
  • Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Nuclear Chemical Engineering and Radiochemistry

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The majority of fission products in SNF can be separated during the oxidative dissolution in Na2CO3–H2O2 solutions through alkaline spent fuel reprocessing. However, since some fission products like Cs, Tc, Mo, and Te can be completely dissolved in a carbonate solution, they can not be removed during the extraction step of alkaline spent fuel reprocessing. In this work, a pretreatment step using sodium hydroxide solution has been investigated in order to remove these dissolved fission products in advance. At 25 °C, after 60 min, the results showed that the dissolution rates of Мо, Cs, Ba, Re, and Te were enhanced with the increase of NaOH concentration. However, the dissolution rate of UO2 and U3O8, respectively, decreased from 0.191% to 0.026% and from 0.223% to 0.035% at 85 °C, after 60 min. The dissolution rate of UO2 and U3O8 was decreased to 0.004% and 0.007%, respectively. Thus, the obtained results demonstrated that NaOH pretreatment for the SNF is considered an effective pre-step in selectively dissolving these fission products before moving to the oxidative dissolution step, as well as improving the reprocessing efficiency in order to minimize dissolution challenges during the different extraction stages.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering—Volume 4; ICONE 2025, Nuclear Fuel and Materials, Transportation and Fuel Cycle, and Reactor Physics II
EditorsSichao Tan, Weiqiang Xu, Yanyan Zhu
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages161-171
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9789819527311
DOIs
StatePublished - 2026
Externally publishedYes
Event32nd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, ICONE 2025 - Weihai, China
Duration: 22 Jun 202526 Jun 2025

Publication series

NameSpringer Proceedings in Physics
Volume329 SPPHY
ISSN (Print)0930-8989
ISSN (Electronic)1867-4941

Conference

Conference32nd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, ICONE 2025
Country/TerritoryChina
CityWeihai
Period22/06/2526/06/25

Keywords

  • Alkaline spent fuel reprocessing
  • Fission products
  • Radioactive waste
  • Sodium hydroxide

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