Advanced reprocessing for fission product separation and extraction

The United States inventory of used nuclear fuels contains approximately 2 to 5 wt % fission products, depending on the extent of fuel burnup during irradiation, with the greater amounts produced in higher burnup fuels. For reprocessing of used nuclear fuels, fission products are more often divided into categories according to their chemical and radiological properties. Advanced reprocessing includes further separations processes to enable capture and disposal of the volatile fission product elements in improved solid waste forms, as well as additional separations processes being developed (1) to enable recovery and recycle of the remaining minor transuranium element actinides, neptunium, americium, and curium, and (2) to segregate the lanthanide fission products and the intermediate-lived heat-generating radionuclides, ¹³⁷Cs/^137mBa and ⁹⁰Sr/⁹⁰Y.