MOX sintering furnace

ALD France benefits from long term experience of Degussa Company – one of the first manufacturers of the MOX furnaces and from the leading position of our parent company ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH in vacuum heat treatment market to ensure you the righteous quality of its furnace for fuel production.

LWR Fuel Elements are made of MOX fuel pellets from a mixture of UO₂ and PuO₂. Pu results from the re-processing of spent fuel elements or from nuclear weapons. The toxicity of Plutonium requires a handling in an enclosed system to avoid any release of the Plutonium out of the production step. ALD France has a proven technology which guaranties the handling of MOX fuel without contamination of the sintering plant.
 ALD France designs and manufactures sintering furnaces for the production of MOX pellets. ALD France has supplied of about 20 furnaces to leading producers of MOX fuel such as MELOX (F), BNFL (UK), MFFF (USA).

The use of plutonium for the fuel implies extremely high requirements in terms of design and manufacturing.

The equipment must be designed and manufactured in order to ensure:

• Absolute leak tightness to avoid the release of Pu particles outside of the equipment during operation and the maintenance.
• Absolute leak tightness even in case of an accidental case (seismic event, loss of power, ...).

 The furnace as well as the auxiliary equipment are designed and manufactured according to the highest level of safety requirements of the nuclear industry.

 Learn more about MOX fuel production here or on Areva's website.