Development of the method to assay barely measurable elements in spent nuclear fuel and application to BWR 99 fuel

Suyama, Kenya; Uchiyama, Gunzo; Fukaya, Hiroyuki; Umeda, Miki; Yamamoto, Toru*; Suzuki, Motomu*

Nuclear Back-end and Transmutation Technology for Waste Disposal, p.47 - 56, 2015/00

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55111-9_6

In fission products in used nuclear fuel, there are several stable isotopes which have large neutron absorption effect. It is known that there are several hardly measurable elements in such important fission products. JAEA had been developed the method to assess the amount of fission products which are hardly measurable and have large neutron capture cross section, under the auspices of the JNES. In this development, the measurement method was developed combining a simple and effective chemical separation scheme of fission products from used nuclear fuel and ICP-MS with high-sensitivity and high-precision. This method was applied to the measurement program for used BWR 99 fuel assembly. This method is applicable to the required measurement for the countermeasure to the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plants of Tokyo Electric Power Company. This presentation describes the measurement method developed in the study as well as the future measurement plan in JAEA.