Actinide and Fission Product Partitioning and Transmutation Tenth Information Exchange Meeting at Mito, Japan 6-10 October 2008 Recent Development of Pyrochemical Processing and Metal Fuel Cycle Technology in CRIEPI Tadafumi Koyama, Takanari Ogata, Tadashi Inoue Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry
Metal Fuel & Pyroprocess Characteristics • Metal fuel enhances the performance of SFR core, e.g. a higher breeding ratio, less fissile inventory, higher fuel burn-up. • The nature of metal fuel enables to employ pyrometallurgical reprocessing which has an intrinsic proliferation-resistant feature due to inherent difficulty of extracting weapon-usable Pu. • Long-lived transuranium elements are recovered together with Pu in electrorefining step, and are served for fuel fabrication to be transmuted in the fast reactor. Reduction of waste heat load will reduce disposal site area. • Combination of the pyrometallurgical reprocessing and the injection fuel casting offers substantial reduction of fuel cycle cost compared with the conventional aqueous reprocessing - pellet fabrication system.
CRIEPI’s Fuel Cycle Concept Applying the flexibility of LWR fuel cycle LWRs pyroprocess, actinides from LWR fuel cycle streams such as spent fuel, Spent fuel MOX powder and HLLW from PUREX Purex MOX reprocessing will be introduced into HLLW fast reactor cycle. Reduction to metal Pyro-partitioning U, Pu, MA U, Pu Denitration Chlorination Pyro-process Electrorefining Reductive FBRs Reductive extraction extraction U-Pu-MA-Zr MA Injection casting Waste FBR fuel cycle (salt, metal)
Development of Metal Fuel Cycle Technology 1.
Pyroprocess Development with Un-irradiated Fuels (CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr (CRIEPI /J AEA joint prog ogram) Integrated tests with cold U,Pu for metal and oxide fuel reprocessing Process Optimization for high recovery ratio UO 2 U 、 Pu U+Pu+Zr U - Pu (U,Pu)O U 2 ー ＋ ー Salt ・ Cd Anode Cd Cathode Solid Cathode U 3+ Pu 3+ LiCl- KCl LiCl/Li Electroreduction Electrorefineing Distillation Sampling (500 � ） (500 － 1500 � ) (1500 � ） (650 � ) Metal fuel cycle
Pyroprocess Development with Irradiated Fuels (CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog ogram) m) Ar atmosphere Hot Cell dedicated for pyroprocess installed in JRC-ITU. � Electroreduction test of irradiated oxide fuel � Electrorefining test of U-Pu-Zr fuel irradiated at Phenix Material Balances of actinides and FPs
Process Equipments Development / Electrorefiner Anode/solid cathode Liquid Cd cathode Test with U Test with simulants Calculation for scale-up
Metal Fuel Development – JOYO Irradiation Program (CRIEPI /J (CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr AEA joint prog ogram) � Test fuel pins & objectives � Total 6 test pins will be fabricated and irradiated. Plenum Cladding Smear Peak clad. Peak # Objective (PNC-FMS) density temp. burnup ) 77% To confirm no liquefaction at Na 640 ℃ 3 at.% ~650C at the fuel-clad. interface ) 74% 1050 ) 77% U-20Pu-10Zr To obtain FCCI data 620 ℃ 8 at.% at a high clad. temp. >600 C 200 ) 74 % )* 77% To obtain FCMI data U-10Zr 610 ℃ 15 at.% at a high burnup >15at.% )* 74% be planned � Linear power rate: ~500 W/cm PNC-FMS
Metal Fuel Development – Fuel Fabrication for JOYO (CRIEPI /J CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr AEA joint prog ogram) The fuel pin design has been completed and approved by the regulatory authority. Fabrication of 6 Metal Fuel pins are underway for JOYO irradiation test. Casting Furnace U-Pu metal was prepared by electroreduction of MOX, and injection casted with Zr and U. Casting at 1773 K U-Pu-Zr fuel slug
2. Partitioning & Transmutation Study
Pyro-partitioning Process & Transmutation � MAs recovery from HLLW of purex process by pyro-partitioning. LWR fuel cycle � Fabrication of MA bearing metal fuel, U- LWRs Pu-MA-Zr, by injection casting. Spent fuel � Irradiation of MA bearing metal fuel with Purex MOX Fast Reactor. HLLW Reduction � Reprocessing of MA bearing metal fuel to metal Pyro-partitioning by pyro-processing. U, Pu, MA U, Pu Denitration Chlorination Pyro-process Electrorefining Reductive FBRs Reductive extraction extraction U-Pu-MA-Zr MA Injection casting Waste FBR fuel cycle (salt, metal)
Denitration Test of Real HLLW (CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog ogram) m) - 520 g of TRU concentrated real HLLW was heated at 500 o C under air flow. - Volatile material and NOx were trapped at scrubbers gas outlet Air supply Calcinated products (7.3 g) Concentrate Gas outlet 520g of HLLW U: 8400 µg/g TRU: 600 µg/g 500 o C FP: 2000 µg/g Empty HNO 3 NaOH crucible bottle scrubber scrubber Closed reactor with heater Only 0.2 – 0.3 % of Ru was detected
Chlorination Test of Denitration Products (CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog ogram) m) - The denitration product (7.3g) was charged with 97.5g of LiCl-KCl salt in a graphite crucible. - The crucible was heated at 650 o C, and reacted with chlorine gas for 32.2 hours. Cl 2 monitor Cl 2 gas KOH scrubbers cold traps Ar hot cell Heater Recovered chloride salt
Analytical Results and Next Step (CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog ogram) m) - The contents of actinide chlorides in LiCl-KCl were analysed for obtaining recovery ratios from the amounts in HLLW. - The obtained recovery ratios of actinides as chlorides were 94 - 111%, respectively. - The chloride is being contacted with liquid Cd-Li alloy for recovering actinides into liquid Cd phase. Li-Cd reductant n+ n+ n+ An FP FP n+ Li + Chlorination product An (in molten LiCl-KCl) Li An Liquid Cd reductive extraction test crucible
Transmutation – Phenix Irradiation (CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog ogram) m) � Fabrication of fuel alloy rods � 20 ~ 50 mm-long, 4.9 mm dia. fuel rods � U-Pu-Zr, U-Pu-Zr-MA, U-Pu-Zr-MA-RE � Arc melting and gravity casting at ITU MA: Np, Am, Cm RE: Ce, Nd, Y, Gd 285 100 100 10 Pin#1 Bond U-19Pu-10Zr Na Pin#2 U-19Pu-10Zr-2MA-2RE Pin#3 U-19Pu-10Zr U-19Pu-10Zr U-19Pu-10Zr-5MA U-19Pu-10Zr-5MA-5RE
Transmutation – Phenix Post-Irradiation Exam. (CRIEPI /JRC-ITU (CRIEPI /JR -ITU '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 joint pr joint prog ogram) m) Irradiation & Nondisruptive exam. at Phenix-site METAPHIX-1 (2.5at%) METAPHIX-2 (7at%) METAPHIX-3 (11at%) Disruptive exam. at ITU METAPHIX-1 (2.5at%) METAPHIX-2 (7at%) METAPHIX-3 (11at%) U-Pu-Zr-2.5wt.%MA Data band of U-Pu-Zr fuels 100 tested by ANL/INL irradiated in EBR-II Fission gas release (%) (X501) 80 60 40 Fission gas (Xe & Kr) release were at the lower bound of existing data band, METAPHIX-1 20 due to lower fuel temperature. 0 Cross section of Pin#3, 0 5 10 15 20 Peak burnup (at.%) U-19wt.%Pu-10wt.%Zr-5wt.%MA
Summary and Future Work CRIEPI’s current developments on pyrochemical processing and metal fuel cycle technology are summarized. As for FBR fuel cycle technology, engineering model of process equipments will be developed based on the detailed material balance obtained by hot examination. As for P&T study, tests of pyro-partitioning of actinides from real HLLW will be finished, and electrorefining of irradiated MA bearing metal fuel will be carried out.
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