Studies on crud formation and methodology for its control during reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel

The liquid-liquid extraction is mainly employed for the recovery of unused uranium and plutonium present in the spent fuel discharged from nuclear power reactors in reprocessing industries. All reprocessing industries suffer from stable and viscous emulsion material, which is mainly caused by the formation of interfacial solids during the extraction/stripping process. This kind of interfacial crud formation is more pronounced in the reprocessing of spent fuel from fast reactor. In these studies, the conditions leading to the formation of interfacial crud, the associated problems in the equipment used for reprocessing, and the methodologies for minimizing its formation are presented.