Recent Development of Pyrochemical Processing and Metal Fuel Cycle - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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 pyroprocess, actinides from LWR fuel cycle streams such as spent fuel, MOX powder and HLLW from PUREX reprocessing will be introduced into fast reactor cycle.

Denitration LWRs Purex Reduction to metal HLLW

LWR fuel cycle

MOX FBRs MA Pyro-process

FBR fuel cycle

Spent fuel Electrorefining Reductive extraction Waste (salt, metal) Pyro-partitioning U, Pu U-Pu-MA-Zr Chlorination Reductive extraction U, Pu, MA Injection casting

1. Development of Metal Fuel Cycle Technology

Pyroprocess Development with Un-irradiated Fuels

UO 2 (U,Pu)O

2

U U、 Pu Salt・ Cd

Electroreduction

(650)

Electrorefineing

(500）

Distillation

(500－1500)

U- Pu LiCl/Li LiCl- KCl

Solid Cathode Cd Cathode Anode ＋ ー ー

Pu 3+ U 3+ U+Pu+Zr

Sampling

(1500）

Metal fuel cycle

Integrated tests with cold U,Pu for metal and oxide fuel reprocessing

(CRIEPI /J (CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr AEA joint prog

• gram)

Process Optimization for high recovery ratio

Pyroprocess Development with Irradiated Fuels

(CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog

• gram)

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

Test with U Test with simulants Anode/solid cathode Liquid Cd cathode Calculation for scale-up

(CRIEPI /J (CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr AEA joint prog

• gram)

Metal Fuel Development – JOYO Irradiation Program

Test fuel pins & objectives Linear power rate: ~500 W/cm Total 6 test pins will be fabricated and irradiated.

Cladding (PNC-FMS) Plenum Na U-20Pu-10Zr U-10Zr PNC-FMS 200 1050

# Smear density Peak clad. temp. Peak burnup Objective ) 77% ) 74% ) 77% ) 74 % )* 77% )* 74%

be planned

To confirm no liquefaction at ~650C at the fuel-clad. interface To obtain FCMI data at a high burnup >15at.% To obtain FCCI data at a high clad. temp. >600 C 640℃ 620℃ 610℃ 3 at.% 8 at.% 15 at.%

(CRIEPI /J CRIEPI /JAEA joint pr AEA joint prog

• gram)

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. U-Pu metal was prepared by electroreduction of MOX, and injection casted with Zr and U.

Casting Furnace Casting at 1773 K U-Pu-Zr fuel slug

Metal Fuel Development – Fuel Fabrication for JOYO

• 2. Partitioning & Transmutation Study

Pyro-partitioning Process & Transmutation

Denitration LWRs Purex Reduction to metal HLLW

LWR fuel cycle

MOX FBRs MA Pyro-process

FBR fuel cycle

Spent fuel Electrorefining Reductive extraction Waste (salt, metal) Pyro-partitioning U, Pu U-Pu-MA-Zr Chlorination Reductive extraction U, Pu, MA Injection casting

MAs recovery from HLLW of purex process by pyro-partitioning. Fabrication of MA bearing metal fuel, U- Pu-MA-Zr, by injection casting. Irradiation of MA bearing metal fuel with Fast Reactor. Reprocessing of MA bearing metal fuel by pyro-processing.

Denitration Test of Real HLLW

• 520 g of TRU concentrated real HLLW was

heated at 500oC under air flow.

• Volatile material and NOx were trapped at

scrubbers

Air supply Closed reactor with heater Empty bottle HNO3 scrubber NaOH scrubber

500oC

Concentrate crucible Gas outlet

520g of HLLW U: 8400 µg/g TRU: 600 µg/g FP: 2000 µg/g

gas outlet

Only 0.2 – 0.3 % of Ru was detected Calcinated products (7.3 g)

(CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog

• gram)

m)

Chlorination Test of Denitration Products

• The denitration product (7.3g) was charged with 97.5g of LiCl-KCl

salt in a graphite crucible.

• The crucible was heated at 650oC, and reacted with chlorine gas

for 32.2 hours.

KOH scrubbers cold traps Cl2 monitor Cl2 gas Heater Recovered chloride salt Ar hot cell

(CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog

• gram)

m)

• The contents of actinide chlorides in LiCl-KCl were analysed for
• btaining 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.

Analytical Results and Next Step

An

n+

FP

n+

Chlorination product (in molten LiCl-KCl) Liquid Cd Li-Cd reductant An

n+

FP

n+

An Li + Li reductive extraction test crucible

(CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog

• gram)

m)

Transmutation – Phenix Irradiation

MA: Np, Am, Cm RE: Ce, Nd, Y, Gd

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

285 100 100 10

Pin#1 Pin#2 Pin#3

Bond Na U-19Pu-10Zr U-19Pu-10Zr U-19Pu-10Zr U-19Pu-10Zr-5MA U-19Pu-10Zr-2MA-2RE U-19Pu-10Zr-5MA-5RE

(CRIEPI / (CRIEPI / JR JRC-IT C-ITU U joint pr joint prog

• gram)

m)

Transmutation – Phenix Post-Irradiation Exam.

'03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 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%)

20 40 60 80 100 5 10 15 20

Peak burnup (at.%) Fission gas release (%)

Data band of U-Pu-Zr fuels irradiated in EBR-II U-Pu-Zr-2.5wt.%MA tested by ANL/INL (X501) METAPHIX-1

Cross section of Pin#3, U-19wt.%Pu-10wt.%Zr-5wt.%MA

(CRIEPI /JR (CRIEPI /JRC-ITU

• ITU

joint pr joint prog

• gram)

m) Fission gas (Xe & Kr) release were at the lower bound of existing data band, due to lower fuel temperature.

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.