Preface

This special volume contains the proceedings of the “International on-line workshop SPLG: Modern problems in the physics of separation in nuclear fuel cycle” held on June 29, 2021. This meeting was organized by Institute of Nanoengineering in Electronics, Spintronics and Photonics of National Research Nuclear University (MEPhI) in accordance of the solution of the International Organizing Committee of the workshop “Separation Phenomena in Liquids and gases” (SPLG) instead of the planned full-scale meeting SPLG-2021 in Moscow. This event has offered a platform in bringing together experts and young specialists to exchange their ideas and achievements in research of physical processes connected with separation of isotopes in nuclear fuel cycle. We focus on this problem because production of the enriched uranium with high efficiency together with reprocessing and utilization of the spent fuel are of special interest. Solution of these problems makes the nuclear power really pure and “green”. Centrifugal and laser separation traditionally appeared in the center of interest. Design of the separation cascades for reprocessing of the spent fuel is one of the hot spots in the nuclear energy. The existing cascades are not efficient enough for the separation of the reprocessed uranium, which has artificial isotopes such as 232 U, 233 U in addition to natural ones. New ideas are requested here. Fresh ideas are also valuable in the general theory of cascades for separating multi-component mixtures of stable isotopes. Development of unique approaches to separate lead, molybdenum, tungsten, zinc, boron, and other isotopes is of great importance for nuclear power as well as for other applications such as fundamental research, medicine, industry. The program of the meeting consists of oral invited lectures of the leading experts on selected topics and numerous posters. The main topics of the meeting are the following: • physics of separation processes in strong centrifugal field; • problem of cascading of the separation units in different applications; • physics of the laser separation; • physics of other methods of separation. The meeting attracted specialists from 9 countries. 80 participants have registered during the meeting. The interest demonstrated by specialists from all over the world shows that two year gap between SPLG meetings is sufficient for generation of new ideas and achievements interesting for separation community. We hope that next SPLG meeting will be already in full-scale format. Guest Editor Professor Sergey V. Bogovalov Head of the International Laboratory of Extremal Hydrodynamics National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Russia List of Organizing Committee are available in this pdf.