Physicochemical State of the Spent Fuel Leaving the Reactors Available to Purchase

This review focuses on the current knowledge, updated at the end of 1999, about the physicochemical state of the fuels leaving light water reactors, and particularly pressurized water reactors in France. Accessible data in the scientific literature, or those acquired at the CEA, are particularly numerous. Their analysis and their synthesis are joined together to constitute a collection of references intended to the specialists in nuclear fuel and for all those which contribute to the studies on the storage or final disposal of the irradiated fuel.