TRANSMUTATION OF CESIUM-137 USING PROTON ACCELERATOR

Two transmutation methods of Cs-137 using a proton accelerator were ev aluated in terms of the effective half life and the transmutation ener gy. One was the proton method which mainly used high energy proton spa llation reaction for transmutation, and the other was the spallation n eutron method which mainly used thermal neutron capture reaction. The transmutation energies and the effective half lives for the two transm utation methods were calculated by Monte Carlo simulation codes for pa rticle transport, the NMTC/JAERI code and the MCNP code. The calculate d transmutation energies were 510 MeV and 570 MeV for the spallation n eutron method and the proton method, respectively, for an effective ha lf life of 2 yr for Cs-137.