Curio receives $2.5 million DOE funding for nuclear recycling technology

Curio has secured an additional $2.5 million in cost-shared funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to advance its NuCycle nuclear recycling technology. The company will combine this federal grant with approximately $1 million of its own investment to validate the NuCycle process at a laboratory scale using actual used nuclear fuel and transuranic materials.

The research will focus on two primary processes: selective fluoride volatility and electrowinning. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, researchers will conduct fluorination experiments to validate the separation of uranium from other radioactive materials. Simultaneously, work at the Savannah River National Laboratory will focus on developing electrowinning equipment that utilizes high temperatures and electricity to extract transuranic materials from liquid salt.

This funding builds upon a $5 million ARPA-E project initiated in 2023. Curio aims to develop a scaled prototype laboratory and demonstration facility capable of processing up to 4,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel by the end of 2027, transitioning the technology from simulated materials to testing with actual radioactive waste.