Material balance evaluation in pyro-reprocessing of ADS nitride fuel

Tateno, Haruka; Sato, Takumi  ; Tsubata, Yasuhiro   ; Hayashi, Hirokazu 

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been pursuing research and development on partitioning and transmutation of minor actinides (MAs) by accelerator-driven system (ADS) using uranium-free nitride fuel. The target transmutation ratio of 99% MAs can be achieved if 99.9% of MAs in the spent fuel are recovered in reprocessing. From the point of view of neutronics design, the weight ratio of rare-earths against MAs in the refabricated fuel should be 5.0% or less. In this study, we calculated the material balance in the pyro-reprocessing of nitride fuel to evaluate the processing conditions to meet the above-mentioned requirements.