Deployment and Demonstration of Process Monitoring Equipment and Techniques in a
Pyroprocessing Facility

Significant effort has been made in the US and internationally to advance pyroprocessing as a viable used nuclear fuel reprocessing technology. While major advancements in the technology have been made, safeguards approaches are still being developed and explored. A major program exploring safeguards in pyroprocessing systems is the Material Protection, Accounting, and Controls Technologies (MPACT) program in the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. These technologies include instrumentation such as voltammetry sensors, bubblers, thermocouples, and advanced analysis methods to provide process monitoring (PM) and nuclear material accountancy (NMA) within process equipment such as an electrorefiner. In 2022, a measurement campaign was conducted in which MPACT-developed technologies were deployed at the Idaho National laboratory (INL) within an electrorefiner located within the hotcell of the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF). Specific instrumentation utilized during the test include a voltammetry sensor developed at Argonne National Laboratory and a bubbler developed at INL. Additionally, process signatures from the electrorefiner were analyzed by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory to draw useful PM/NMA correlations within the data.