Research and development of aqueous separation technology in JAERI

The present paper describes the research and development of aqueous separation technology for spent nuclear fuel in JAERI. In the Research Group for Separation Chemistry, a study on a simple process for the actinide recovery from spent fuel, named ARTIST process, was started under a new program. In this process, all the separation are achieved by reagents composed of the elements of C, H, O, N. In the Process Safety Laboratory, basic chemistry of actinides and reprocessing of spent fuel by Purex method are being studied to establish more reliable basis of reprocessing technology. The resent work is focused on the redox reaction and extraction behavior of Np in the reprocessing. (author)