Cyclife France is made up of 300 employees based in production sites located in France, providing customers with a comprehensive service offering for the treatment of low to intermediate level radioactive waste. For the last 30 years, Cyclife has endeavoured to optimise the capacity of storage facilities in France by reducing volumes of radioactive waste. Commissioned in 1999 and located in Codolet, in the Gard département, CENTRACO is a unique industrial facility in France for treating and reducing volumes of low to intermediate level radioactive waste. It is equipped with an incinerator and a foundry unit for radioactive waste and covers a surface area of 11 hectares.
More than 95,000 tons of radioactive waste have been processed in its melting and incineration furnaces in the last 20 years. The incineration unit is equipped with several preparation workshops and a furnace for safe incineration of solid waste (plastic, paper, textiles, wood, ...) and liquid waste (oils and aqueous solutions). Cyclife France can process up to 6,000 tons of waste a year, thereby reducing waste volumes by 95%. The foundry unit is fitted with a cutting workshop for large metal components. Once waste is sorted and cut to size, it is placed in a 4 ton capacity induction furnace. The molten metal is turned into ingots. These operations reduce waste volumes by 90%. Some of this metallic waste can be recycled in the form of integrated radiological shielding, used for conditioning other types of nuclear waste.
And to continuously improve its response to customer needs, Cyclife France has designed in partnership with EDF a range of mobile treatment and conditioning machines tailored for every type of radioactive waste, for deployment on customer production sites:

• MERCURE: conditioning of the ion-exchange resins in pressurised water reactor primary circuits
• UMIS: a turnkey mobile controlled area, replicating a nuclear safety containment system for purposes of container inspections, ensuring compliance of containers storing bulk waste
• UMC: immobilisation of radioactive concentrates
• UM2B: immobilisation of radioactive sludge generated by operating nuclear power plants

Thanks to an integrated engineering team and expertise in cutting-edge technologies, Cyclife France applies its know-how to deliver solutions tailored to the different challenges faced by its customers. Specific radioactive material and waste is managed through preliminary studies and the deployment of effective engineering solutions, or by adapting or creating new processes. Waste is then diverted to new treatment processes before dispatch to storage facilities. With efficient industrial tools and detailed processes, the Cyclife France teams are developing unique and indispensable expertise in this field.