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ReCore-Processing is the fuel-cycle side of the ReCore engineering concept: a pyroprocessing-oriented pathway to recover actinides from metallic fuel (and from oxide LWR fuel after reduction) and return them as U-TRU-Zr metal fuel. It is intended to support the closed cycle described in Why? — converting existing nuclear materials into fuel without depending on scarce specialised forms such as HALEU or TRISO.
For investors, regulators, and engineers, the industrial fuel cycle is often a larger uncertainty than the reactor island itself: remote fabrication, pyroprocessing throughput, economics, safeguards, material accounting, and facility licensing. Those open questions sit at the centre of this page.
What goes into the plant as feed is explained under LWR spent nuclear fuel; long-lived transuranics (TRU) are why multi-recycle is of interest.
Metallic SFR fuel and molten-salt electrorefining are a natural technical fit. Compared with large aqueous plants (e.g. PUREX-style):
TRL figures are estimates. Process steps have been demonstrated at pilot and engineering scale; a commercial multi-reactor pyro hub is not yet a commodity industry.
| Technology | Est. TRL | Notes / heritage |
|---|---|---|
| Metal-fuel electrorefining | 7–8 | Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF), Idaho National Laboratory — multi-tonne class electrorefining of irradiated EBR-II metal fuel |
| Liquid cadmium cathode (LCC) co-recovery | 6–7 | Demonstrated electrorefiner option for TRU co-deposition (no pure Pu product stream by process design) |
| Electrolytic oxide reduction (LWR bridge) | 6–7 | Pilot / engineering programmes (e.g. PRIDE / KAERI and related oxide-to-metal work) |
| Metal fuel fabrication (injection cast) | 6–7 | Metallic fuel programmes (EBR-II / IFR heritage); glovebox / hot-cell casting routes |
| Hot-cell remote handling | 8–9 | Mature industrial and R&D practice worldwide for irradiated fuel |
| Salt clean-up / fission-product removal | 6–7 | Engineering development alongside electrorefiners; zeolite / extraction options in literature and pilots |
| Ceramic / metallic waste forms | 6–7 | Lab-to-engineering waste-form programmes (e.g. sodalite-type and metallic forms) |
| Actinide R&D hot cells (EU) | 7–8 | Atalante (Marcoule / CEA) and related European fuel-cycle R&D infrastructure |
| FR fuel / pyro R&D (Japan) | 6–7 | Tokai and JAEA-class work on fast-reactor fuel and pyrochemical options |
| Integrated commercial pyro hub | 3–5 | Not routine industry; needs scale-up, licensing, safeguards, and financing |
The process is electrochemical recycle in molten salt, not aqueous solvent extraction. Feed can be metallic SFR fuel or LWR oxide assemblies after they are understood as spent nuclear fuel and reduced to metal.
All of this is intended to run in shielded hot cells under inert gas (e.g. argon). The intended products are fresh U-TRU-Zr metal fuel and compact fission-product-dominated waste forms — not a once-through spent-fuel assembly left as-is. Throughput, yields, and plant economics remain open industrial questions.
Once-through LWR spent fuel remains radiotoxic on a multi-hundred-thousand-year scale largely because of actinides / TRU. Multi-recycle of transuranics is intended to substantially reduce the long-term radiotoxic inventory requiring geological isolation, leaving a residual stream dominated by fission products (literature often discusses order-of 500-year horizons in simplified comparisons). That is a fuel-cycle goal, not a plant guarantee.
Beyond laboratory and pilot steps, commercialisation would still need to resolve, among other things:
These are where many advanced fuel-cycle proposals struggle — and why this page is as important as the reactor description.
A regional hub serving several reactor sites is a practical deployment model: concentrate safeguards, hot cells, and expertise rather than co-locating full recycle on every reactor pad. Footprint is expected to be much smaller than classical aqueous mega-plants, but exact area depends on throughput and national rules.