The nuclear fuel cell

The radioactive material, basically uranium, as found in nature is far from suited to enter in the chain reactions needed to produce energy. It has to be concentrated, transformed in chemical forms which allow its isotopic enrichment, transformed again - chemically and physically - to fabricate the fuel elements to be used in the reactor. After combustion, it has turned into a complex mixture of radioelements which has to be processed for the useful part to be extracted for recycling. The remaining part is the radioactive waste that has to be conditioned for the protection of the people. These very numerous transformations are a very complex set of operations. Much research and much industrial development have been and still are required to define and optimize them. They form the 'nuclear fuel cycle', described and analyzed in this paper. (author)