Transmutation characteristics of minor actinides in advanced pressurized water reactors

With the development of nuclear power industry, spent fuel of nuclear power plant is increasing. The disposal of minor actinides(MA) of spent nuclear fuel in nuclear power plants is not only an important process of recycling nuclear fuel, but also key step in the closed cycle. If MA can be disposed properly, the utilization rate of fuel can be improved, and MA can be turned into useful isotopes such as radionuclide fuel cell isotopes and neutron source isotopes and so on. Internationally accepted method of disposal is transmutation, but the difficulties of MA transmutation are how to select the type of transmutation reactor and how to improve the transmutation rate. Because the pressurized water reactor (PWR) is the most mature type of reactor and the main commercial operation reactor type, PWR has the most possibility to transmutate MA at this stage. Therefore, we did the research of the transmutation characteristics of MA with MCNP in PWR. Studying the design, layout and supplementation of MA transmutation rod and the influence on the effective multiplication factor, we explored the best transmutation MA design and technology directions in PWR. The results would lay the theoretical foundation for MA transmutation in PWR.