Raw materials from nuclear waste

Is permanent storage the only strategy for dealing with nuclear waste? Not necessarily, says Kristina Kvashnina, the scientist in charge of the HZDR’s Rossendorf beamline (BM20) at the ESRF, where the chemical properties of the new materials will be tested using the advanced capabilities of ESRF-EBS.

With this new EU funding project led by HZDR, Kvashnina, who serves as the coordinator of MaLaR, aims to investigate the options for recycling specific elements from nuclear waste into valuable raw materials using novel separation techniques.

Lanthanides: a precious resource

The focus of the recycling efforts is lanthanides, a group of chemical elements that includes some rare earths. These elements are widely used in screens, batteries, magnets, contrast media, and biological probes. “Lanthanides are a very rare raw material, most of which comes from China. That’s why we are trying to recycle this raw material from waste, even from nuclear waste,” explains Kvashnina.

Recycling such waste involves separation. In addition to the fundamental safety concerns associated with radioactive materials, nuclear waste presents a unique challenge: its components often exhibit very similar chemical behaviours. “That’s why it’s very difficult to find something which only causes a reaction in one element and not in others so that you can extract just the one,” precises Kvashnina.

Carbon materials as specific element scavengers

The MaLaR Consortium is working on an innovative procedure. The team seeks to develop novel 3D materials as pivotal tools for effective, environmentally friendly, and sustainable separation methods. This applies not only to nuclear waste but also to industrial waste, such as that generated by radiomedical applications. As with existing separation methods, the researchers rely on the principle of sorption: specific radioactive elements in liquid nuclear waste attach themselves to the neighboring solid phase of a sorbent and can thus be separated from the rest of the waste.

In the MaLaR project, Kvashnina and her partners want to systematically study these chemical reactions and develop new materials based on graphene oxide to act as highly selective scavengers for specific elements.

Addressing nuclear and industrial waste challenges

“Our aim is to design a material with which we can initially extract individual elements from synthetic element mixtures. In the future, that could then be transferred to various applications. Admittedly, in three years we can only take the first step toward recycling, but if we are successful, applications will be within easy reach,” Kvashnina emphasises.

The potential impact is significant. The novel separation methods could not only aid in the recovery of valuable raw materials from nuclear and industrial waste but also improve the safety of final storage for highly radioactive materials. For example, isotopes with different half-lives could be separated and stored individually, enhancing long-term safety. The project explicitly aims to develop market-ready technological solutions.

“It will be great to spend the next few years working on such strategic project. Together, we can combine fundamental insights from experiments with theoretical calculations and models as well as material characterization and development,” says Kvashnina.

The MaLaR project officially launched on 1 January 2025. Through the European EURATOM programme, HZDR and its partners will receive €2.3 million in funding over three years (2025-2028).

Top image: Kristina Kvashnina, scientist in charge of the HZDR’s Rossendorf beamline (BM20) at the ESRF and coordinator of the MaLaR project. Credit: Denis Morel/HZDR