SHINE Partners with Argonne National Laboratory to Develop High-Speed Nuclear Fuel Recycling Technology

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Dimension News, August 18 — Fusion energy company SHINE announced a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Case Western Reserve University to apply Argonne's PaCERS high-speed centrifugal chemical separation technology to the nuclear fuel recycling process SHINE is currently advancing. The collaboration is conducted under the ARPA-E CURIE program, with Case Western Reserve University leading funding support and SHINE participating as a subcontractor.

PaCERS stands for "Packed-Bed Centrifugal Equipment for Radiochemical Separation," which generates centrifugal force far exceeding gravity through high-speed rotation to enhance the efficiency of chemical separation of radioactive materials. Unlike traditional processes that require large volumes of solvents and multi-stage treatment, PaCERS features a high-throughput, low-solvent design aimed at reducing chemical separation costs across multiple stages of nuclear fuel recycling.

This collaboration will focus on separating two radioactive isotopes—strontium-90 and americium-241—both of which have application value in medicine, manufacturing, and advanced power systems. The technology will also be used to recover minor actinides—long-lived radioactive materials remaining after other elements are extracted from spent fuel.

SHINE Chief Technology Officer Ross Radel stated that spent nuclear fuel is a vast resource, and many valuable materials within it can be recovered rather than stored or even disposed of. SHINE noted that spent fuel retains approximately 90% of its energy potential, and its radioactive components can also be used for other industrial purposes.

Transmutation of long-lived radioactive waste is also part of SHINE's long-term plans. The company is validating through another DOE-funded effort the feasibility of using fusion neutrons to shorten the isolation period of certain nuclear waste from thousands of years to decades. This collaboration is part of SHINE's "REDUCE" (Recover Elements—Diminish Hazards—Create Energy) process. SHINE aims to build a commercial pilot facility in the United States by the early 2030s with an annual processing capacity of 100 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. currently has approximately 94,000 metric tons of accumulated spent nuclear fuel.