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This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. This RFI is not accepting applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration to inform the possible formulation of future programs. The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input about the scope of the draft technical section of the CURIE FOA for ARPA-E consideration. ARPA-E will not provide funding or compensation for any information submitted in response to this RFI, and ARPA-E may use information submitted to this RFI without any attribution to the source. This RFI provides the broader research community with an opportunity to contribute views and opinions regarding the technology and economics of reprocessing facilities. Currently, the U.S. uses a once-through nuclear fuel cycle, in which UNF is ultimately dispositioned as HLW even though more than 90% of the energy remains. However, a closed nuclear fuel cycle, which includes reprocessing UNF to recover reusable actinides and recycling them in new fuel, has the potential to improve fuel utilization – especially when coupled with advanced reactors – and drastically reduce the volume of HLW requiring disposal. Historically, commercial reprocessing facilities (e.g., La Hague in France) have used the solvent extraction-based Plutonium Uranium Reduction-Extraction process (PUREX), which was developed in the 1950s to recover uranium and plutonium products as uranium trioxide and plutonium dioxide, respectively. The plutonium dioxide product serves a feedstock that is blended with uranium oxide to fabricate mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which is used by LWRs. Reprocessing facilities generally have large footprints and high throughputs (>1000 MTHM/yr), require numerous unit operations (see Figure 2 below), and generate several waste streams and large volumes of waste. As indicated in the figure below, several material accountancy operations are necessary, including before and after dissolution and for

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