Technical and Economic Assessment of the Prospects for Radiogenic Lead as a Coolant for Lead Cooled Fast Reactors

放射性铅作为铅冷快堆冷却剂前景的技术和经济评估

• 批准号: 2462915
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: The Open University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2462915
• 关键词: Technical; Economic; Assessment; Prospects; Radiogenic

Radiogenic lead has been proposed as a possible coolant for Lead Cooled Fast Reactors. Radiogenic lead is lead that occurs in nature as the decay product of the radioactive decay of previous actinides (such as uranium and thorium). Typically it is located away from the geological locations of regular lead. Some deposits of relatively pure radiogenic lead have been identified.Radiogenic lead has a high proportion of the PB208 isotope than normal naturally occurring lead. Pb 208 has complete nuclear shells and hence is unlikely to absorb neutrons in a nuclear reactor environment. While the potential of Pb208 as a superb LFR coolant has been known for some time it is not practicable or economic to envisage the enrichment of natural lead to enhance Pb 208 concentrations. This project is to assess whether the identification and preparation of radiogenic lead might be a better prospect. The project will examine the technical potential (in terms of reactor physics) of radiogenic lead and also assess the economics of obtaining such material at scale in contrast to nuclear physics based enrichment of natural lead.

放射性铅已被提出作为铅冷快堆的可能冷却剂。放射性铅是自然界中存在的铅，是以前的锕系元素（如铀和钍）放射性衰变的衰变产物。通常它位于远离常规铅的地质位置。已经发现了一些相对纯净的放射性成因铅矿床。放射性铅的PB208同位素比例高于正常的自然铅。pb208具有完整的核壳层，因此不太可能在核反应堆环境中吸收中子。虽然Pb208作为一种极好的LFR冷却剂的潜力已经为人所知，但设想通过富集天然铅来提高Pb208浓度是不切实际的，也不经济。本项目旨在评价放射性铅的鉴定和制备是否具有较好的前景。该项目将审查放射性铅的技术潜力（在反应堆物理学方面），并评估大规模获得这种材料的经济效益，与以核物理学为基础的天然铅富集相比。