Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative

Development and assessment of technologies for improved management of spent nuclear fuel.

Overview

Argonne National Laboratory has been working together with the international research community to explore the potential of advanced nuclear technologies that can significantly reduce the difficulty of disposing of spent nuclear fuel from power plants. Extensive work on transmutation system studies has provided a framework in which to determine future steps for the development of an advanced nuclear fuel cycle that will reclaim energy contained in spent fuel, provide fuel for future generation reactors, reduce the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste, reduce the proliferation threat posed by plutonium contained in spent fuel, better utilize the geologic repository option, and do so in a safe, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly and proliferation-resistant manner.

The overarching goals of the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle Program are to:

• Reduce the long-term radiological impact of waste;
• Enable development of a simpler, cheaper repository;
• Reduce proliferation risk; and
• Improve long-term prospects for nuclear power.

1. System studies are being conducted to establish the practical feasibility of transmutation schemes in various systems, including LWRs with multiple plutonium recycle, gas cooled reactors with deep burn of plutonium fuels, minor actinide recycle in thermal reactors, and transuranic recycle in fast neutron reactors and accelerator-driven systems.
2. Separations technologies based on pyrochemical and aqueous approaches are being developed for existing spent nuclear fuel and specialized transmutation fuels. The major objectives are to reach sufficient throughputs at acceptable cost and low loss rates to the waste streams.
3. Fuels are being developed for transmuting transuranics in reactors that would be used for transmutation. Currently this element of the program is focused on fabrication studies and irradiation tests.
4. Materials research is being conducted to develop lead-bismuth technology in the US for both spallation source and reactor coolant applications. A spallation target development program is also being implemented to obtain the technology for utilizing lead bismuth spallation targets in liquid metal cooled subcritical reactors.
5. Physics research is being conducted to improve the understanding and the predictive capabilities for actinide transmutation and for spallation phenomena. This includes developments in the nuclear data field, along with integral measurements of spallation and transmutation phenomena.

Activities in the Nuclear Engineering Division are focused primarily on the areas of system studies, physics, and transmutation system design.