Minor actinide transmutation on PWR burnable poison rods

Abstract

Minor actinides are the primary contributors to long term radiotoxicity in spent fuel. The majority of commercial reactors in operation in the world are PWRs, so to study the minor actinide transmutation characteristics in the PWRs and ultimately realize the successful minor actinide transmutation in PWRs are crucial problem in the area of the nuclear waste disposal. The key issues associated with the minor actinide transmutation are the appropriate loading patterns when introducing minor actinides to the PWR core.We study two different minor actinide transmutation materials loading patterns on the PWR burnable poison rods, one is to coat a thin layer of minor actinide in the water gap between the zircaloy cladding and the stainless steel which is filled with water, another one is that minor actinides substitute for burnable poison directly within burnable poison rods. Simulation calculation indicates that the two loading patterns can load approximately equivalent to 5–6 PWR annual minor actinide yields without disturbing the PWR keff markedly. The PWR keff can return criticality again by slightly reducing the boric acid concentration in the coolant of PWR or removing some burnable poison rods without coating the minor actinide transmutation materials from PWR core. In other words, loading minor actinide transmutation material to PWR does not consume extra neutron, minor actinide just consumes the neutrons which absorbed by the removed control poisons.Both minor actinide loading patterns are technically feasible; most importantly do not need to modify the configuration of the PWR core and composition of nuclear fuel. Furthermore, the two minor actinide loading patterns completely isolate minor actinide transmutation materials from nuclear fuel, so it also facilitates fuel reprocessing after discharged from PWR core. We believe that loading minor actinide to PWR burnable poison rods for transmutation is an optimal minor actinide loading pattern.