Overview of FBR fuel recycling technology development

As to the reprocessing techniques for the fuel of FBRs, the present status in foreign countries is briefly reported, and the present status of the technical development in Japan, which has been carried out for the past ten years, is described through the FBR fuel recycling test facility of pilot scale, of which the conceptual design has been finished recently. In FBRs, it is necessary to recover plutonium from the spent fuel and recycle it an new fuel. It is indispensable to complete the reprocessing techniques for FBR fuel. In Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., the full scale development was started in fiscal year 1975, and the various equipment was developed, and the cold and hot tests were carried out. The main problems of FBR fuel recycling techniques, the present status of the reprocessing technique development in USA, UK, West Germany and Japan, and the conceptual design of the FBR fuel recycling test facility are described. In the recycling test facility, the remote maintenance techniques were positively adopted, and the treatment is carried out for 100 days/year at 120 kg/day. (Kako, I.)