High power particle accelerator for driving the nuclear waste transmutation system at nuclear power plant

Abstract

The existing technology for treatment of NPP nuclear waste is a deep geological disposal technology. But this technology is still has possibility of leakage due to heating caused by radioactivity process from long lived elements of nuclear waste. The development of high power particle accelerator technology which can produce high power proton beam to induce nuclear spallation reaction has introduced a new accelerator-based technology for treatment of nuclear waste from NPP named the Accelerator-driven Transmutation Waste (ATW). This paper describes result of study on status of accelerator based transmutation system for NPP nuclear waste. ATW is subcritical nuclear reactor combined with high power proton accelerator for transmutation of nuclear waste utilizing neutrons from spallation reaction due to collision of high power proton beam with heavy metal material as spallation target. The types of accelerators used for ATW are cyclotron, linac and synchrotron which able to produce proton beam of 10 up to 100 MW beam power, 10 up to 100 mA beam current and 0.6 up to 1.5 GeV beam energy. Demonstration scale ATW requires 1 up to 2 MW of proton beam power to generate 50 up to 100 MWth of thermal power in subcritical reactor. Whereas industrial ATW requires 10 up to 75 MW of proton beam power to generate hundred MWth of thermal power in subcritical reactor. Several countries have roadmap of ADS research and development which the main goal of nuclear waste transmutation using ADS called ATW. ATW also can be used for electrical energy production which is safer and more reliable.