[ RadSafe ] A little more on the Reprocessing process

[Timothy Rice]

Jerry and Franz,
At the former commercial West Valley spent fuel reprocessing facility incoming fuel was cut into short segments using a hydraulic shear, and the cladding segments and contained fuel dropped into a transfer basket (no need to physically extract the fuel out of the segments of cladding).  A bit of a "brute force" approach but simple and efficient, though it did leave some residual fuel fines on the floor of the cell where the shearing was performed. The basket was then transferred to a separate hot cell where the fuel (but not the cladding) was dissolved in acid prior to the extraction process. The remaining segments of cladding, referred to as "hulls", were removed and sent for disposal in an on-site NRC-licensed disposal facility referred to by the workers as the hull burial area.  
Hope that helps,
Tim

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 21:54:49 +0200
From: Franz Sch?nhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Spent Fuel, Fuel Rod Bundles, Reprocessing,
	Robotics,	etc.
To: "The International Radiation Protection \(Health Physics\) Mailing
	List"	<radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
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	reply-type=original

Jerry,

If memory serves me well (and I am sure it does!) then the first step in 
reprocessing is cutting the fuel rods into small pieces and then proceed 
with dissolving cladding and fuel in suitable acids and treat the solution 
according to its chemical composition to retrieve the plutonium and/or 
uranium in a pure form while simultaneously separating it from fission 
products. In other words, it is done exactly as you describe it.

Best regard

Franz

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- 
From: Yahoo Mail Inc
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 9:40 PM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Spent Fuel, Fuel Rod Bundles, Reprocessing, 
Robotics,etc.

Why not just dissolve the whole thing, fuel pellets and clading in nitric 
acid ,
or other suitable solvent and proceed from there. I thought fuel 
reproocessing
was a relatively well established technology in Pu production and, to a 
small
extent in reprocessing commercial nuclesr fuel. I cannot understand the 
"need"
for extracting the fuel from the cladding as a first step. Please explain.
Jerry Cohen