NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE

Hye peeps! Hope, all of you in a good condition today. Again, about nuclear. But, for this time, i will talk about nuclear fuel cycle. Sounds interesting right? So, let see what it's all about.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle 

 

Figure 1: Nuclear fuel cycle

Nuclear fuel cycle or nuclear chain cycle is a process to generate electricity. It consists of 3 stages.

1. Front end fuel management.
2. In core fuel management
3. Back end fuel management

Front end fuel management is about preparation of the fuel, and in order to prepare it, those stages need to be done. First of all is mining and miling, following with conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication. And as a final result, electricity will be generated after steams from the water will turn the turbine in fuel fabrication process.

In core fuel management is about the fuel has been using in the reactor operation. While, for back end fuel management is about reprocessing or disposed spent nuclear fuel. The spent nuclear fuel that has been removed from the reactor will be hot and very radioactive, so it must be cooled and the solution is, stored it in the ponds at the reactor site. If the spent nuclear fuel is not reprocessed, we called it open fuel cycle, vice versa, closed fuel cycle.

 

Figure 2 : Cooling pond : In back end fuel management

Uranium
Definiton - A heavy silvery-white metallic element, radioactive and toxic, easily oxidized, and having 14 known isotopes of which U 238 is the most abundant in nature. The element occurs in several minerals, including uraninite and carnotite, from which it is extracted and processed for use in research, nuclear fuels, and nuclear weapons. Atomic number 92; atomic weight 238.03; melting point 1,132°C; boiling point 3,818°C; specific gravity 18.95; valence 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

reference from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/uranium

Uranium in nature consists primarily of two isotopes, U-238 and U-235. The numbers refer to the atomic mass number for each isotope, or the number of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. Naturally occurring uranium consists of approximately 99.28% U-238 and 0.71% U-235

Uranium mined from the earth's crust and actually not usable for power generation. But, by several processes, uranium can be efficiently generate electricity.

Figure 3: Uranium mining 

source from wikipedia.org

Mining
Mining is a process to extract the uranium from the hard rock. In mining uranium, it comprised of 3 ways. You can choose either one.

1. open cut mining (on the surface)
2. underground (blasting hard rock and ore to create large openings in the ground)
3. in situ leaching

In my opinion, the third way will be the best solution; in situ leaching because there are a lot of advantages if i'm using this way as my mining method compared with those two. Plus, after done with mining, we no need to proceed to miling process because uranium oxide already leached to form a uranium.The advantages of using in situ leaching are:

• less expensive
• less costly to build
• no solid waste
• less ground disturbance
• less rehabilitation required
• very little dust

Figure 4: In situ leaching process