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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Hoai-Nam Tran, Yasuyoshi Kato, Peng Hong Liem, Van-Khanh Hoang, Sy Minh Tuan Hoang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 11 | November 2019 | Pages 1460-1473
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1601470
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the investigation of minor actinide (MA) transmutation in supercritical CO2-cooled and sodium-cooled fast reactors (S-CO2-FR and SFR) with the thermal output of 600 MW(thermal) for simultaneously attaining low burnup reactivity swings and reducing long-life radioactive waste. Minor actinides are loaded uniformly in the fuel of the cores, and the MA contents are determined to minimize the burnup reactivity swings. In the S-CO2-FR, the burnup reactivity swing is minimized to 0.11% ∆k/kk’ when the MA content is 6.0 wt%. In the SFR, the MA content was determined to reduce the burnup reactivity swing while maintaining sodium void reactivity under a design limitation of 5 $. The burnup reactivity swing of the SFR is reduced to 1.94% ∆k/kk’, whereas sodium void reactivity is about 4.7 $ when 10.0 wt% MAs are loaded. The low burnup reactivity swing enables minimization of control rod operation during fuel burnup. The number of control rods in the two reactors is reduced to ten, which is half of a typical sodium-cooled mixed-oxide fuel MONJU reactor without MA loading. The MA transmutation rates in the S-CO2-FR and SFR are 42.2 and 52.2 kg/year, respectively, which are equivalent to the production rates in seven and nine light water reactors of the same electrical output.