Characterization of Cladding Hull Wastes from Used Nuclear Fuels

Used cladding hulls from pressurized water reactor (PWR) are characterized to provide useful information for the treatment and disposal of cladding hull wastes. The radioactivity and the mass of gamma emitting nuclides increases with an increase in the fuel burn-up and their removal ratios are found to be more than 99 wt.% except Co-60 and Cs-137. In the result of measuring the concentrations of U and Pu included in the cladding hull wastes, most of the residues are remained on the surface and the removal ratio of U and Pu are revealed to be over 99.98 wt.% for the fuel burn-up of 35,000 MWd/tU. An electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA) line scanning shows that radioactive fission products are penetrated into the Zr oxide layer, which is proportional to the fuel burn-up. The oxidative decladding process exhibits more efficient removal ratio of radionuclides.