DECOMMISSIONING | MELTING METALS
SMELD for more metals recovery
A research project is underway in Belgium that is expected to save a substantial waste management challenge in nuclear decommissioning by effectively sorting molten metals to extract the radioactive elements
NEWS THAT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has given the final go-ahead for the SMELD project opens the door to more efficient removal of radioactive elements from metals derived from decommissioned nuclear facilities and a major boost to the creation of a nuclear circular economy. SMELD, State-of-the-art MEtal MElting Limiting waste during D&D, is a research project aimed at enabling larger quantities of metals from decommissioned nuclear power plants to be re-used. The goal is for the techniques developed to far exceed the performance of the current generation metal melting technologies. As Guido Mulier, Senior Business Developer D&D at SCK CEN, tells NEI: “The challenge today is that there are furnaces on the market which are used to melt nuclear metals. They do a good job and have done for many years, but they have their limits in the kind of material that they can melt and also in the level of radioactivity they can handle. It’s different depending on the radio nuclides in the metal. An example is cobalt 60, when the level of cobalt 60 is too high current smelters cannot accept those metals. In the United States, they accept a higher level of cobalt 60, but again there is a limit.”
Now a joint research project between Belgium’s nuclear
research centre SCK CEN and the Liège-based research institution the Centre for Metallurgical Research (CRM Group) aims to change that and boost the opportunities for the circular economy in dismantling and decommissioning of nuclear sites by constructing a novel nuclear furnace. Mulier continues: “Where that limit available on the market today is reached, that is where we start with our SMELD project. That’s where we are looking to improve and to increase the possibilities so that more metals could have a second life.”
Advancing metallurgical techniques The intention is that SMELD will lead to an upgraded form of the technology able to capture most of the radioisotopes during melting and then subsequently separate them from the metal. By doing so the technology will enable a dramatic reduction in the quantity of radioactive waste while also increasing the volume of materials available for reuse. Some radioisotopes are difficult to ‘capture’ using the techniques currently available and this new approach is expected to improve performance their too.
Above: Furnaces used to melt nuclear metals today have limits in the kind of material that they can melt and the level of radioactivity they can handle 36 | April 2024 |
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