Advances in uranium refining and conversion

One of the most important steps in the nuclear fuel cycle is the uranium refining and conversion which goes from the yellow cake to three different products: uranium dioxide, natural metallic uranium and uranium hexafluoride. The total volume of this industry, at the present time, is nearly of 40,000 t U per year and at the end of the present century it would have reached the 60,000 t U per year. The refining and conversion of reprocessed uranium that can be extracted by treating irradiated fuel become equally important for recycling recovered fuel. In response to the growing interest in these topics, the IAEA convened a Technical Committee Meeting with the attendance of 37 experts from 21 countries. This technical document contains the 20 papers presented during the meeting. A separate abstract was prepared for each of these papers