Treatment of contaminated metals and radioactive waste – 50 years of practical experience

Treatment of contaminated metals by melting in Sweden started 1987 as a joint initiative by the licensee at that time and the regulators in Sweden. At that time, the incineration facility had been operating for more than a decade. Treatment services for international customers started in 1982 for incineration of organics and 1988 for treatment of metals. Since 2016, the metal treatment facility is owned and operated by Cyclife Sweden, a company within the EDF Group.

Over the years the facilities, treatment methods and the operations have been developed and extended. New production lines have been added. A few things have remained over the years, like the focus on safety, the ambition to minimise the volume of waste for disposal as radioactive waste and to recycle the metals to the public domain upon completion of the treatment and clearance processes. As an average, more than 95% of the metals sent for treatment have been subject to clearance. A key parameter in the preparation of any treatment campaign is a proper characterisation to very the key parameters and to verify that the acceptance criteria for treatment are fulfilled. 

One of the largest projects performed was the shipment of 15 Magnox boilers from the UK for treatment in Sweden. The voluminous boilers, each about 600 cubic meters, resulted in 8 cubic meters of residues for disposal per boiler in addition to a lot of metals for recycling.

A recently conducted pilot project was the treatment of the upper parts of six French steam generators. This project was the first in modern time when metals from the nuclear zone at a French nuclear power plant were treated aiming for clearance and recycling to the public domain after the change of the French legislation in 2022. All the generated metal ingots were safely recycled into new products upon completion of the process. The presentation will provide an overview of the experiences from almost 50 years of operational experience. The operational experience of treatment of different types of organic waste will be presented. The paper will also discuss how to optimise the management of large components and scrap metals to make the management even more sustainable and the projects more cost efficient.

We have been fortunate to get the speaker Arne Larsson from Cyclife Sweden to present to us how one may address in particular radioactive metallic waste and reduce the volume for such radioactive waste. Join us in order to learn more about how waste reductions and a sustainable process can enhance safety, reduce waste management costs and simplify processes for several types of radioactive waste, mainly metals.

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