Treatment of high-level wastes from the IFR fuel cycle
Treatment of high-level wastes from the IFR fuel cycle
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IFR 燃料循环中高放废物的处理
DOI：
10.1007/978-1-4615-2526-4_10
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发表时间：
1995
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Laidler
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. R. Johnson;M. Lewis;A. Newman;J. Laidler
整体式快堆(IFR)1是美国能源部反应堆发展计划支持的先进动力反应堆概念2，它有望在节约资源和消耗超铀元素的能力方面比目前的反应堆具有重要优势，从而从其废物中排除这些元素。它还可以用来消耗其他核废料中的氡系元素，如乏轻水反应堆燃料，以及核武器中的超铀(TRU)元素。IFR的特点是使用热化学方法进行现场再处理，从铀-钚-锆芯和铀-锆包层燃料中回收鳗系元素，分离裂变产物，并产生合适的高放射性废物形式。在500℃左右的电精炼过程中，99%以上的TRU元素被回收并从裂变产物中分离出来。对电精炼废液进行处理以回收残留的吖系元素，可使排放燃料中99.9%以上的TRU元素得到回收、循环和燃耗。电精炼器(图1)是一个钢制容器，装有液态镉(在某些操作中用作阳极)和液态LiCl-KCl电解液。乏燃料元件被切碎，放入钢篮中，并浸入电解液中，在电解液中，燃料从覆层中阳极溶解。燃料中的大部分铀被电化学沉积在钢阴极棒上，其余的铀和TRU元素被沉积在液态镉阴极中。在固体阴极上，很大一部分的锆也与铀一起沉积。这些阴极被蒸馏以回收盐和镉，并被熔化以生产用于生产新的堆芯和毯子燃料的金属锭。
The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)1 is an advanced power reactor concept sponsored under the U. S. Department of Energy’s reactor development program.2 It promises to have important advantages over present reactors in its capability to conserve resources and consume the transuranic elements, thus excluding these from its wastes. It can also be used to consume the actinides in other nuclear wastes, such as spent light-water reactor fuels, and the transuranic (TRU) elements from nuclear weapons. The IFR features on-site reprocessing using pyrochemical methods to recover actinides from the U-Pu-Zr core and U-Zr blanket fuels, separate fission products, and produce suitable high-level waste forms. More than 99% of the TRU elements are recovered and separated from fission products by an electrorefining process at about 500°C.3 Treatment of electrorefiner wastes to recover residual actinides results in the recovery, recycle, and burnup of more than 99.9% of the TRU elements in discharged fuel. The electrorefiner (Figure 1) is a steel vessel that holds a pool of liquid cadmium (which serves as an anode in some operations) and a liquid LiCl-KCl electrolyte. Spent fuel elements are chopped, placed in steel baskets, and immersed in the electrolyte, where the fuel is anodically dissolved from the cladding. A major fraction of the uranium from the fuels is electrochemically deposited on steel cathode rods, and the rest of the uranium and the TRU elements are deposited in liquid cadmium cathodes. A significant fraction of the zirconium is also deposited with uranium on the solid cathodes. These cathodes are retorted to recover salt and cadmium, and melted to produce metal ingots for use in producing new core and blanket fuels.