Questions tagged [nuclear-reprocessing]

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How does nuclear fuel reprocessing work?

As far I know, the depleted fuel cells are crushed, and solved in nitric acid. What is coming after that? This nitric acid should probably contain a very wide spectrum of different salts (practically, all of the elements between 35-65, and yet a lot…
peterh
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How to separate isotopes of Plutonium?

In case of Uranium, things are lot easier, because $UF_6$ is gaseous from around 60 $\,^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$. I know, that in most cases, plutonium isotope separation is not needed, because there is no need to separate its fissile isotopes. But there…
peterh
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What are the key technical challenges to development of traveling wave reactors?

I recently learned about traveling wave reactors (TWRs) on the Netflix Bill Gates special, as an example of a cutting-edge technology Gates is funding which has the potential solve several environmental problems. The TWR is a nuclear fission reactor…