A CONCEPT OF NITRIDE FUEL ACTINIDE RECYCLE SYSTEM BASED ON PYROCHEMICAL REPROCESSING

A fuel cycle system coupled with nitride fuel fast reactors and a pyro chemical reprocessing has been investigated in order to establish an a ctinide transmutation recycle system with long-lived radioactive nucli des. Core performance of the nitride fuel fast reactor can provide des ign flexibility of excellent safety characteristics and a new concept of core composed with Na- and He- bonded fuel assemblies is proposed. The effect of N-15 enrichment on nuclear characteristics and the evalu ation of toxicity of C-14 generated from N-14 are appeared, and furthe rmore, excellent performance for the minor actinide (MA) transmutation is shown. The study of the pyrochemical process shows that the actini des are reasonably separated from fission products in the nitride spen t fuels, and that the high level wastes are of nearly actinide-free fo rm. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.