Study of Minor Actinides Transmutation in PWR MOX fuel

摘要

The management of long-lived radionuclides in spent fuel is a key issue toachieve the closed nuclear fuel cycle and the sustainable development ofnuclear energy. Partitioning-Transmutation is supposed to be an efficientmethod to treat the long-lived radionuclides in spent fuel. Some MinorActinides (MAs) have very long half-lives among the radionuclides in the spentfuel. Accordingly, the study of MAs transmutation is a significant work for thepost-processing of spent fuel. In the present work, the transmutations in Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)mixed oxide (MOX) fuel are investigated through the Monte Carlo based code RMC.Two kinds of MAs, $^{237}$Np and five MAs ($^{237}$Np, $^{241}$Am, $^{243}$Am,$^{244}$Cm and $^{245}$Cm) are incorporated homogeneously into the MOX fuelassembly. The transmutation of MAs is simulated with different initial MOXconcentrations. The results indicate an overall nice efficiency of transmutation in bothinitial MOX concentrations, especially for the two kinds of MAs primarilygenerated in the UOX fuel, $^{237}$Np and $^{241}$Am. In addition, theinclusion of $^{237}$Np in MOX has no large influence for other MAs, while thetransmutation efficiency of $^{237}$Np is excellent. The transmutation of MAsin MOX fuel depletion is expected to be a new, efficient nuclear spent fuelmanagement method for the future nuclear power generation.