Improving the Reliability of Nuclear Fuel Processing Plants

摘要

Japan Nuclear Fuel is building a reprocessing plant in Rokkasho village, Aomori prefecture. Since existing reprocessing plants have experienced outbreaks of stainless steel corrosion due to exposure to boiling nitric acid solution, an effort is being made to select materials that are highly resistant to process solutions based on nitric acid. To this end, the Rokkasho plant has adopted a reduced-pressure distillation technology and selected zirconium for use in boiling nitric acid under normal pressure.