Flexible fuel cycle system for the effective management of plutonium

Fukasawa, Tetsuo*; Hoshino, Kuniyoshi*; Yamashita, Junichi*; Takano, Masahide

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(11), p.1215 - 1222, 2020/11

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1779144

The flexible fuel cycle initiative system (FFCI system) has been developed to reduce spent fuel (SF) amounts, to keep high availability factor for the reprocessing plant and to increase the proliferation resistance for the recovered Pu. The system separates most U from the SF at first, and the residual material called recycle material (RM) which contains Pu, minor actinides, fission products and remaining U will go to Pu(+U) recovery from the RM for Pu utilizing reactor in future. The Pu utilizing reactor is FBR or LWR with MOX fuel. The RM is the buffer material between SF reprocessing and Pu utilizing reactor with compact size and high proliferation resistance, which can suppress the amount of relatively pure Pu. The innovative technologies of FFCI are most U separation and temporary RM storage. They are investigated by the literature survey, fundamental experiments using simulated material and analyses using simulation code. This paper summarizes the feasibility confirmation results of FFCI.