Development of New Decladding System in the Reprocessing Process for FBR Fuel

Washiya, Tadahiro ; Koizumi, Kenji ; Koichi, Sugai,*; Takashi, Suganuma,; Aose, Shinichi

As a part of the feasibility study (FS) on commercialized fast reactor cycle systems, JNC has been developing the fuel decladding technology for the dry reprocessing process (oxide electrowinning process). In this process, the spent fuel should be reduced to powder for quick dissolution in the molten salt at electrolyzer. Therefore, JNC proposes new decladding system with innovative mechanical decradding devices. The decladding system consists of fuel crushing stage, hull separation stage and hull rinsing stage. In the fuel crushing stage, disassembled spent fuel pins are crushed and powdered by mechanical decladding device, then the following stage, the hull and the fuel powder are separated by magnetic separator. Only the fuel powder is fed to the electrolyzer. On the other side, the separated hull is melted by induction heating method, and the small amount of oxide included in the hull fragments is recovered at the hull rinsing stage. The recovered oxide fuel is fed back to the electrolyzer.