Case Western Reserve University partnering with Argonne National Laboratory on Genesis Mission grant to harness power of AI to unlock recycling of nuclear fuel
“The selection of this project for Genesis funding is yet another reflection of Case School of Engineering faculty's research excellence in electrochemical engineering.”
Case Western Reserve University has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a coveted Genesis Mission Phase I award as part of a project team led by Argonne National Laboratory to investigate how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help scientists recycle used nuclear fuel.
The project, one of 278 chosen to receive funding through the first phase of the DOE’s Genesis Mission, is a partnership among Argonne, Case Western Reserve and Oklo Inc., a nuclear power company headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
The awards, announced this week at the DOE’s Genesis Summit in Washington, D.C., are designed to double the nation’s scientific productivity by bringing together world-class scientific capabilities, advanced AI, high-performance computing and the nation’s leading researchers across academia, industry and national labs to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security.
The CWRU team is led by Rohan Akolkar, the Milton and Tamar Maltz Professor of Energy Innovation at Case School of Engineering, and his laboratory.
The award is a reflection of Case Western Reserve faculty’s research excellence in the field of electrochemical engineering, said Susan Hagness, Charles H. Phipps Dean of the Case School of Engineering.
“This Genesis award to Argonne, CWRU and Oklo Inc. builds on a rich history of research collaborations at CWRU involving public-private partnerships,” Hagness said. “Our faculty in the Case School of Engineering have long recognized the value of collaborating with the national labs to tackle critical challenges in energy research. These partnerships are a strategic priority for us, as exemplified by the growing number of Case School of Engineering faculty with joint appointments at the national labs.”
Argonne National Laboratory has led the development of used nuclear fuel recycling through a method called pyroprocessing for more than 20 years. Expanding U.S. nuclear capacity will require recycling used nuclear fuel—more than 95% of which is still recyclable material.
The Phase I project aims to remove that barrier by building an AI-enabled digital twin of the process: a live software model that lets engineers predict facility behavior and reduce time to license before construction begins.
Working with CWRU and Oklo, the Argonne team will develop a digital twin for the first stage of pyroprocessing, in which used fuel is converted from an oxide into base metals—a step known as oxide reduction.
The team will be training and calibrating the model on Argonne’s oxide-reduction experimental data. AI agents built around the digital twin will handle data preparation, model tuning, real-time anomaly detection and automated regulatory documentation, allowing the team to iterate on facility designs in software rather than through repeated physical experiments.
Akolkar, a renowned electrochemical engineer whose research at CWRU includes developing new processes in energy storage, semiconductors and electrometallurgy, will be tasked with developing a physics informed neural network, or PINN—an AI system that runs experiments and makes predictions while incorporating the chemistry and physics equations that govern real action to ensure more accurate outcomes.
"The Argonne National Laboratory has been a strategic partner to my lab on many electrochemical projects—from electrosynthesis of metals to nuclear fuel processing and even novel battery materials,” he said. “The Genesis Mission award to our team is a unique opportunity to integrate AI into electrochemistry, a capability that I hope will have far-reaching impacts in research and innovation as well as graduate education.”
