Process design and material balance evaluation of pyro-metallurgical reprocess for LWR fuels

Process design and material balance evaluation of pyro-metallurgical reprocess for treating high burn-up LWR fuel and LWR-MOX fuel were performed, considering secondary steps, such as recycle of reductant or molten-salt solvent, separation of fission products, recycle of volatile products, etc. The results was normalized to the amount treated in an electro-refiner. Sensitivity analysis on various process parameters, i.e. volatile ratio of fission products, contamination ratio of molten-salt solvent, reduction ratio of nuclear fuel, etc. was also carried out to elucidate the degree of importance of R and D for those parameters. Both Li-reduction and electro-reduction processes were applied for the process design. (author)