Flexible fuel cycle system for the effective management of plutonium

Abstract

ABSTRACT The flexible fuel cycle initiative system (FFCI system) has been developed to reduce spent fuel (SF) amounts, to keep high availability factor for the reprocessing plant and to increase the proliferation resistance for the recovered plutonium (Pu). The system separates most uranium (U) from the SF at first and the residual material called recycle material (RM) which contains Pu, minor actinides (MA), fission products (FP) and remaining U will go to Pu(+U) recovery from the RM for Pu utilizing reactor. If there is a delay of the Pu utilization reactor deployment, the RM will go to temporary storage until its deployment. The Pu utilizing reactor is fast breeder reactor (FBR) or light water reactor (LWR) with mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. The RM is the buffer material between SF reprocessing and Pu utilizing reactor with compact size and high proliferation resistance, which can suppress the amount of relatively pure Pu. The innovative technologies of FFCI are most U separation and temporary RM storage. They are investigated by the literature survey, fundamental experiments using simulated material and analyses using simulation code. This paper summarizes the feasibility confirmation results of FFCI.