Experience acquired in fluid bed preparation of UF6 in view of reactor fuel processing

Fluidization seems to be a suitable method to produce UF6 from spent nuclear fuels. The exothermic character of the gas-solid reactions leading to the production of this hexafluoride and the industrial experience acquired on similar systems justify this opinion.
However, limitations are imposed to the application of this technique: the physical and chemical properties of the irradiated fuel, the more or less extensive head-end in order to obtain a suitable starting material, the exothermicity combined with the necessity to take into account temperature conditions for subsequent plutonium recovery, nuclear criticality problems.
A short review of the results obtained up to now is commented in the frame of these boundary conditions.