Nuclear waste immobilization for sustainable nuclear energy program

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels does fetch multiple benefits in terms of lower environmental stress/risk and more economical nuclear power generation. (i) Recycling of uranium (²³⁵U, ²³³U), and/or plutonium (²³⁹Pu) as nuclear fuel components for further energy generation; usage of (ii) ¹³⁷Cs and ⁹⁰Sr for cancer treatment; (iii) ²³⁸Pu, ²⁴⁴Cm for Radioactive Thermoelectric Generator; (iv) ²⁴¹Am for safety (e.g. smoke detector) and security applications; (v) recovery of expensive platinum group of elements etc are the few advantages associated with closed nuclear fuel cycles. However, besides all these beneficial features, reprocessing of spent fuels also generates High-Level Nuclear Wastes, which contain as high as 99% of radioactivity witnessed in a given fuel cycle