The evaluation of transmutation of hazardous nuclear waste of ⁹⁰Sr, into valuable nuclear medicine of ⁸⁹Sr by ultraintense lasers

Abstract

The analytical evaluation of the capability of Bremsstrahlung highly directional energetic g-beam to induce photo transmutation of 90 Sr (g,n) 89 Sr is presented. Photo transmutation of hazardous nuclear waste of 90 Sr, one of the two main sources of heat and radioactivity in spent fuel into valuable nuclear medicine radioisotope of 89 Sr is explained. Based on the calculations, a fairly decent fraction of gamma rays in this range are used in transmuting of 90 Sr into 89 Sr where according to the available experimental data it is shown that by irradiating a 1-cm thick 90 Sr sample with lasers of intensity of 10 21 W/cm 2 and repletion rate of 100 Hz for an hour, the reaction activity would be 1.45 kBq. It is shown that there is not a linear relationship between the growth of the activity and increasing the laser intensity, but there is a dramatic increase in the growth rate especially between 10 20 and 10 21 W/cm 2 . In this work, the advantage of photonuclear transmutation over the neutron capture transmutation for 90 Sr isotope is also discussed.

Transmutation prospect of long-lived nuclear waste induced by high-charge electron beam from laser plasma accelerator

“…Laser-based transmutations of 129 I have already been explored experimentally, 18,19 and those of 90 Sr, 93 Zr, 99 Tc, 107 Pd, 126 Sn, 135 Cs and 137 Cs have been investigated theoretically. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] These studies demonstrate the transmutation reaction in moderate yield of the order of 10 4 -10 7 s -1 and hence suggest that laser-generated electrons (mainly due to the laser-ponderomotive acceleration) could be a promising tool for photonuclear studies as well as the resulting nuclear waste management.…”

Photo-transmutation based on resonance γ-ray source*

“…Transmutations of 129 I based on a laser-induced bremsstrahlung (LIB) source have been already performed experimentally in Germany, [2][3][4] UK, [5] and Japan. [6] Theoretical investigations have been done on LLFPs such as 126 Sn, [7,8] 107 Pd, [9] 93 Zr, [10] 90 Sr, [11] 135 Cs, [12][13][14] and 137 Cs. [15] An LCS γ-ray source can produce γ-rays in a wide energy range, which can be utilized to transmute LLFPs.…”

Effect of quantum correction on the acceleration and delayed heating of plasma blocks

“…Propagations of such electromagnetic waves are studied in various plasma conditions [2]. By using these intense lasers, transmutation of hazardous nuclear wastes into the safe and valuable nuclear medicine became possible [3]. Induced heating due to the transport of a fast electron beam generated by an ultrashort pulse laser interaction with solid targets reported, ultraintense fast laser pulses are also used for producing monoenergetic electrons, and hot-electron energy coupling in ultraintense laser-matter interaction is proposed to use for fast ignition [4].…”