Design of a high flux reactor for the transmutation of fission products

Abstract

We studied the transmutation of 137Cs into a stable nuclide in a fission reactor. The reactor we considered is a high-flux fast reactor with an inner thermal region for the transmutation. Neutronic calculations for the reactor were carried out. The average thermal neutron flux was 2.5 × 1015 n/cm2s in the Cs region under the constraints that the burnup reactivity and the peaking factor are within 3.0 and 1.7% Δk/kk′, respectively, which correspond to conditions in ordinary fast reactors. The reactor gives a transmutation rate of 2.8%/yr for 137Cs.