An introduction to head-end in reprocessing
By Natalia Domenech-Garcia, Alastair Baker, Chris J. Maher, Sarah E. Pepper, Bruce Hanson, University of Leeds
Published in Nuclear Future 21.3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63198/XNTY7065
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SUMMARY
The Plutonium and Uranium Reduction EXtraction process (PUREX), is the most widely used process to reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF). Head-end constitutes the
second step of the PUREX process. This review article provides an in-depth description of the whole head-end process from a mechanical and chemical perspective.
AUTHORS
Dr Natalia Domenech-Garcia is a chemist currently working for Sellafield Ltd., which is the largest nuclear waste management facility in the UK. Before her current role, Natalia worked as a research fellow at the University of Leeds (UK), where she conducted investigations into Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF) dissolution at the head-end of reprocessing.
Dr Sarah Pepper holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Manchester as well as a BSc in Chemistry from UMIST and a MSc in Environmental Science from the University of Nottingham.
She has previously worked as a Post-doctoral Research Associate at Washington State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Leeds and as a Research Scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory.
Sarah joined the University of Sheffield in November 2021 as Experimental Officer in Aqueous Geochemistry, focussing on the analysis of samples using ICP-MS and ICP-OES.
Chris Maher gained an MChem Chemistry at the University of York with radiochemistry at the University of Helsinki. He has worked at what is now the UK’s National Nuclear
Laboratory since 2002 and has carried out work supporting the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. During this time, he studied part-time for a PhD at the University of Manchester (part of the EU FPVII ASCEPT project) relating to options for the head-end treatment of exotic nuclear fuels. Most of his time is spent working on the head-end treatment and dissolution of actinide containing materials.
Dr Alastair Baker is the Experimental Officer operating the Multiphase Fluid Flow In Nuclear Systems (MULTIForm) Experimental Facility, part of the UK’s National Nuclear Users Facility (NNUF), as well as lab captain for the Nuclear Engineering Lab at the University of Leeds. He was awarded the UoLeeds Mentor of the Year 2021 and won the Pinkerton Prize for Nuclear Research in 2023
Professor Bruce Hanson was the Leadership Chair in Nuclear Process Engineering at the University of Leeds. He is a named investigator on 10 grants, leading EPSRC’s ATLANTIC programme and serving as Co-Director of the GREEN CDT. Before his appointment at Leeds, he spent 25+ years in the nuclear and chemical industries in a range of roles, specialising in actinide separations and treatment of irradiated nuclear fuel. He was the Technical Authority for Spent Fuel and Nuclear Materials at the National Nuclear Laboratory, where he was a Visiting Senior Fellow.