Euradwaste '08 - EU Bookshop - Europa

ESDRED has the overall objective of demonstrating the technical feasibility of deep disposal on an industrial
scale, especially as regards the activities required during construction, operation and closure of a deep
geological repository. The project will also show how these activities comply with requirements regarding
long-term safety, operational safety, safeguards and monitoring, and is a joint research effort by the major
European radioactive waste management agencies (or their subsidiaries).
FUNMIG is a complement to NF-PRO, the main objectives being the fundamental understanding of radionuclide
migration processes in the geosphere, their application to performance assessment and the
communication of the results. An understanding of processes involved in the transport of key radionuclides
and their retardation at the molecular level is fundamental, but this must be scaled up to the dimension
of host rock strata being considered in Europe (clay, granite, salt). The migration processes can then
be studied at scales of interest in performance assessment (PA), and this integration and abstraction to PA
are key issues. The knowledge acquired during the project will be disseminated to the wider scientific
community and other stakeholders by active training and other dedicated knowledge management activities.
A large consortium of research organisations, waste management agencies and universities across
Europe are implementing the project.
PAMINA is the most recent of the large projects and integrates key activities undertaken in previous FPs.
It has the objective of improving and harmonising integrated performance assessment (PA) methodologies
and tools for various disposal concepts of long-lived radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in different
deep geological environments. The IP PAMINA aims at providing a sound methodological and scientific
basis for demonstrating the safety of deep geological disposal of such wastes, that will be of value to all
national radioactive waste management programmes, regardless of waste type, repository design, and stage
that has been reached in PA and safety case development. The project is organised into four components
oriented towards research and technological development and one component oriented towards training and
transfer of knowledge.
EUROPART helped to define partitioning methods for the elimination of minor actinides from nuclear
waste flows emanating from the reprocessing of high-burn-up uranium oxide (UOX) or multi-recycled
mixed oxide (MOX) spent fuel. It also defined partitioning methods for the co-recycling of all the actinides
contained in spent nuclear fuels that could arise from future nuclear reactor designs, e.g. hybrid or generation-IV
reactors employing advanced dedicated fuel cycles or ADS (Accelerator Driven System) concepts.
Two principle research techniques were investigated. First, hydrometallurgy that uses the high active
aqueous effluents produced by reprocessing spent fuel using the PUREX process. These liquids contain all
the nuclear wastes, i.e. fission products and minor actinides, and will be processed either using the technique
of solvent extraction or extraction by chromatographic methods. This method will also be considered
for the processing of wastes from future reactor designs. The second technique is pyrometallurgy where
nuclear wastes from the reprocessing of actual or future nuclear spent fuels are dissolved in molten salts
(halides or fluorides) at high temperature (several 100s of degrees centigrade), followed by the separation
of minor actinides using various pyrometallurgical methods (electro-deposition as metals, liquid extraction
using a molten metallic solvent, or selective precipitation as oxides).
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