Curio, a company developing technology to recycle used nuclear fuel, has received $2.5 million in cost-shared funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
Curio will also invest around $1 million of its own funds in the project. The money will support further development and testing of its NuCycle® nuclear fuel recycling technology.
Funding to Support Nuclear Fuel Recycling
The new funding will be used to test two important parts of the NuCycle process at laboratory scale using actual used nuclear fuel and transuranic materials.
Curio aims to develop a prototype laboratory and demonstration facility capable of processing up to 4,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel by the end of 2027.
The company has been working with ARPA-E on the NuCycle project since 2023. The earlier project received a $5 million cost-share award and supported testing at several U.S. national laboratories, including Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Research at Two National Laboratories
Under the latest funding, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will conduct fluorination experiments. The work will focus on separating uranium from other radioactive materials and producing recycled nuclear fuel that meets industry standards.
At Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), researchers will develop and test electrowinning equipment. This tech is designed to separate transuranic elements from liquid salt and collect them as a solid metal mixture.
Focus on Regulatory Approval and Engineering
Alongside the laboratory research, Curio will work on the regulatory and engineering requirements for its technology.
The company plans to develop a regulatory engagement plan, prepare technical documents addressing regulatory issues, study potential regulatory exemptions and create early engineering designs for its fluorination and electrowinning systems.
Curio said the latest DOE funding will help move NuCycle closer to larger-scale demonstration and could support efforts to reduce nuclear waste while recovering valuable materials from used nuclear fuel.
The company is focused on developing technologies for nuclear power generation, fuel recycling and nuclear waste management.
