Speaker
Description
Nuclear energy has emerged as a pivotal and effective technology to address the global energy crisis and mitigate climate change. However, the large-scale deployment of nuclear energy has resulted in the generation of substantial quantities of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), which comprises dozens of chemical elements. Specifically, SNF contains approximately 95% unutilized uranium, 1% plutonium, 0.1% minor actinides (MAs), and 3% fission products (FPs), along with other trace components. Hence, spent fuel reprocessing is essential for the sustainable utilization of nuclear energy and the realization of a closed nuclear fuel cycle. To achieve this goal, a reliable spent fuel recycling strategy is urgently required. Such a strategy should not only maximize the energy utilization efficiency of nuclear fuel by efficiently recovering actinide (An) species but also minimize the volume of radioactive waste requiring geological disposal, while also meeting nonproliferation standards.
To meet the strategic requirements for the sustainable development of nuclear energy, the concept of an accelerator-driven advanced nuclear energy system (ADANES) has been proposed in China. ADANES consists of a burner system and a fuel recycle system. By taking the powerful exogenous neutrons of ADANES, transmutation, proliferation and power generation will be implemented in the burner system simultaneously. The spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and regeneration for accelerator driven advanced nuclear energy system (ADANES) have been investigated in our laboratory for several years. Here, high-temperature oxidation volatilization technology was adopted as the core technology. Specifically, volatile and semi-volatile fission products (e.g., ³H, ¹⁴C, Kr, I, Xe, Mo, Tc, Ru, Te) can be efficiently removed through high-temperature oxidation and reduction processes. Moreover, this reprocessing procedure is not necessary to separate the long-lived minor actinides Np, Am and Cm finely. The rest spent nuclear fuel including some fission products would be refabricated as new nuclear fuels by referring to the preparation technologies of UO2 fuel. At present, the research work focuses on the simulated spent nuclear fuel to verify the feasibility of the proposed reprocessing technology. Furthermore, ADANES possesses inherent safety characteristics due to the operation control of accelerator.