Abstract
It has already passed 20 years since the Tokai reprocessing plant started its operation by Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC; former Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC)) as the first reprocessing plant in Japan. The Tokai reprocessing plant has been operating with the mechanical head-end process and the solvent extraction (PUREX). While JNC had a lot of experiences such as the dissolver failure etc., the reprocessing amount achieved to 936 tons.
On the other hand, while the fast breeder reactor (FBR) development was carried out for realization of plutonium utilization, JNC started the development of the FBR fuel reprocessing technology. The FBR fuel reprocessing has different characteristics from LWR reprocessing as follows, wrapper tube, high plutonium content, high fission products content by high burn-up. Therefore, JNC has been developing the reprocessing equipment, which satisfied following requirements, wrapper tube removal process (dismantling process), high capacity and compact design at severe critical condition, corresponds to increase of the specific activity and insoluble sludge.
And also JNC has been started the advanced reprocessing technology with not only PUREX process but also advanced process, so as to meet various social needs, such as improvement of safety and economics, effective use of resource, decrease of environmental burden and improvement of non-proliferation.
