Fuel recycling: The key step is "electrorefining," which removes uranium, plutonium and the other actinides (highly radioactive elements with long half-lives) from the spent fuel, while keeping them mixed together so the plutonium cannot be used directly in weapons. Spent fuel from reactors that use metallic uranium fuel can go straight to the electrorefiner. Spent fuel from commercial reactors, which consists of uranium oxide, would first undergo an "oxide reduction" step to convert it to metallic form. Next, the uranium and other actinides are sent to the cathode processor to remove residual salts and cadmium from electrorefining. The actinides are cast into fresh fuel, while the salts and cadmium are recycled back into the electrorefiner.