PRELIMINARY STUDY ON MINOR ACTINIDE INCINERATION IN RSG-GAS WITHOUT ISOTOPE SEPARATION

R. Andika Putra Dwijayanto(1), Muhammad Alfarisie(2),


(1) Centre for Nuclear Reactor Technology and Safety, National Nuclear Energy Agency
(2) Center for Multipurpose Reactor, National Nuclear Energy Agency
Corresponding Author

Abstract


Minor actinides (MA) resulted from nuclear power plants is often considered as nuisance in spent fuel management due to its considerably long half-life. One of available strategies to deal with MA is to incinerate it, in order to reduce its radioactivity. This paper presents a study on MA incineration in RSG-GAS research reactor. Unlike previous study, this work did not separate the MA into individual isotopes, but incinerated as a whole. ORIGEN2.1 code is employed to calculate MA incineration within RSG-GAS core. MA composition used in this study consists of Np, Am, and Cm isotopes. The Central Irradiation Position (CIP) of RSG-GAS is loaded by 6 kg of MA and irradiated for two years. The result shows that about 1 kg of MA were incinerated after two years of irradiation, or 18,87% of the initial concentration. However, the increase of Cm-242 isotope, along with newly-formed Pu isotopes, were found to be significantly increasing short-term radioactivity compared to un-irradiated MA. Thus, two years-worth of MA incineration cannot be considered as effective, and other strategies must be pursued.

Keywords


RSG GAS; minor actinide; transmutation; radioactivity

References


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DOI: 10.17146/gnd.2021.24.2.6241

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