Comparative study of minor actinide transmutation in sodium and lead-cooled fast reactor cores

The Investigation of Burnup Characteristics Using the Serpent Monte Carlo Code for a Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor

“…However, the important technology gaps for the SFR are in an area of development of fuel fabrication and in reactor safety. For SFR, one major safety issue is the high sensitivity to the sodium void effect that may induce positive reactivity [12].…”

“…232 Th is less fissile than 238 U due to a higher fission threshold energy in the fast neutron spectrum. In addition, a thorium based fuel cycle does not produce minor actinides but is associated with other isotopes like 231 Pa, 229 Th and 230 U which would have long term radiological impacts [9,12].…”

Impacts of Heterogeneous Recycle in Fast Reactors on Overall Fuel Cycle

“…[1][2][3][4][5] It was noted that other fast reactors, such as the lead-cooled and gas-cooled fast reactors, have also been considered for using minor-actinidebearing target assemblies. 6,7) The transmutation rates in these systems are expected to be the same for a similar fuel composition, although system design considerations might affect how each system is configured and the maximum loading that could be tolerated.…”

Analysis of minor actinides transmutation for a Molten Salt Fast Reactor

“…MA transmutation has been studied in different types of reactors including thermal and fast reactors (Takeda et al, 2002;Liu et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2014;Hu et al, 2015;Tuček et al, 2008;Perkó et al, 2012). Recently, Liu et al studied the MA transmutation performances in Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) by considering the MA adding in uniform distribution with fuel, in the transmutation rods form and in burnable poison rods form, respectively Hu et al, 2015).…”

“…Besides thermal reactors, fast reactors such as Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR), Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) and Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) are also under development to explore new approaches for transmuting MA (Tuček et al, 2008;Perkó et al, 2012). Therefore, a fast reactor is recognized as an alternative system to burn MA since it has a larger ratio of fission-capture cross section and a negative neutron consumption (Salvatores et al, 1994).…”