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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
Argonne research aims to improve nuclear fuel recycling and metal recovery
Servis
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are investigating a used nuclear fuel recycling technology that could lead to a scaled-down and more efficient approach to metal recovery, according to a recent news article from the lab. The research, led by Argonne radiochemist Anna Servis with funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), could have an impact beyond the nuclear fuel cycle and improve other high-value metal processing, such as rare earth recovery, according to Argonne.
The research: Servis’s work is being carried out under ARPA-E’s CURIE (Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy) program. The specific project—Radioisotope Capture Intensification Using Rotating Packed Bed Contactors—started in 2023 and is scheduled to end in January 2026.
E. Mazzucato
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 489-492
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1923260
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The replacement of the burning of fossil fuels in power plants with other forms of clean energy, for example, that of a tokamak fusion reactor employing the deuterium-tritium cycle, like ITER, would contribute enormously to the mitigation of climate change. Unfortunately, for such a type of fusion reactor, we expect the neutrons, which carry 80% of the fusion power with energies seven times larger than those of neutrons of fission reactors, to cause serious radiation damage with possible fracture of the blanket modules and the reactor wall. Hence, before contemplating the use of tokamaks for replacing fossil fuels of conventional power plants, we need a thorough investigation of the damage caused by neutrons in high-power tokamak reactors. Unfortunately, ITER will not provide any exhaustive information since it is neither a high power density tokamak nor a reactor. However, a rise in toroidal magnetic field by a factor of 2 would bring the fusion power of ITER to 8 GW and allow an investigation of the damage caused by neutrons to internal components and the reactor wall.