Continuous operation test at engineering scale uranium crystallizer

Washiya, Tadahiro ; Tayama, Toshimitsu; Nakamura, Kazuhito*; Yano, Kimihiko ; Shibata, Atsuhiro  ; Nomura, Kazunori  ; Chikazawa, Takahiro*; Nagata, Masanobu*; Kikuchi, Toshiaki*

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation (MMC) are developing the crystallization process for elemental technology of FBR fuel reprocessing. The uranium (U) crystallization process is a key technology for New Extraction System for TRU Recovery (NEXT) process that was evaluated as the most promising process for future FBR reprocessing. We had developed an innovative crystallizer and fabricated an engineering-scale crystallizer and have carried out continuous operation test to investigate the stability of the equipment at steady and non-steady state conditions by using depleted uranium. As for simulating typical failure events in the crystallizer, crystal accumulation and crystal blockage were occurred intentionally, and monitoring method and resume procedure were tried and selected in this work.