Direct use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU reactors (DUPIC) fuel cycle technology is currently under development at KAERI in co-operation with Canada, USA and the newly joined IAEA. The DUPIC concept, based on the idea that the spent PWR fuel can be directly refabricated into a reusable fuel for CANDU reactors, has a lot of benefits in terms of proliferation resistance, savings of uranium resources and reduction of spent fuel arising from PWR and CANDU, etc. KAERI has developed DUPIC proceses and equipment suitable for a hot cell environment. The main activities in IMEF hot cell are almost ready for fabrication of DUPIC fuel starting in early 1999. Prior to the main campaign, powder characterisation and sintering behaviour on a small scale will be carried out at the end of 1998. In this paper, the status of the DUPIC research programme at KAERI is described.
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