Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53

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Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Minor actinides transmutation performance in a fast reactor

Toshikazu Takeda
Research Institute of Nuclear Engineering, University of Fukui, 1-2-4 Kanawacho, Tsuruga-shi, Fukui 914-0055, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Results obtained in the project named ‘‘Study on Minor Actinides Transmutation using Monju Data”,
Received 10 February 2016 which has been sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in
Received in revised form 15 April 2016 Japan (MEXT) are described. In order to physically understand transmutation of individual MA nuclides
Accepted 17 April 2016
in fast reactors, a new method was developed in which the MAs transmutation is interpreted by two for-
Available online 24 May 2016
mulas. One corresponds to the difference of individual MA nuclides amounts before and after a burnup
period, and the other is the sum of amount of fission of a relevant MA nuclide and the net plutonium pro-
Keywords:
duction from the MA nuclide during a burnup period. The method has been applied to two fast reactors
Minor actinide
Transmutation
with MA fuels loaded in cores homogeneously and in a blanket region heterogeneously. Numerical results
Fast reactor of MA transmutation for the two reactors are shown.
Fission Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Plutonium production

1. Introduction Salvotores and Palmiotti, 2011. As for partitioning they concluded

After the accident of the TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant (NPP), the nuclear back-end issues concerned with
spent nuclear fuels and radioactive waste have been focused in
Japan. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Tech-
nology in Japan (MEXT) has launched a national project entitled
‘‘technology development for the environmental burden reduc-
tion”. Radioactive wastes have a large environmental burden.
Minor actinides (MAs) are contained in high level radio-active
wastes and they have long-lived radio-activity and high decay
heat. The disposal of high level radio-active wastes in deep ground
seems the most practical way. However for the safe and reliable
maintenance of the disposal, it is desirable to reduce MAs included
in high level wastes through nuclear transmutations by using fast
reactors or accelerator driven systems (Tommasi et al., 2001).
This paper describes the results of ‘‘Study on Minor Actinides
Transmutation Using Monju Data”, which is one of the studies
adopted in 2013 as the national project. Many studies have been
conducted to transmute minor actinides (MAs) by using fast
reactors.
Salvatores discussed in 2005 on nuclear fuel cycle strategies
including partitioning and transmutation (Salvatores, 2005), and
pointed out that the best approach to manage radioactive waste
transmutation is the use of fast reactors. In 2011 Salvatores and
Palmiotti reviewed all-inclusively the status of research activities
of radioactive waste partitioning and transmutation (P&T)
E-mail address: t_takeda@u-fukui.ac.jp
that the radiotoxicity inventory can be reduced up to a factor of 10
if all of Pu is recycled and fissioned. Reduction factor higher than
100 can be obtained if, in addition, the MAs are burned.
A prerequisite for these reduction figures is a complete fission-
ing of the actinides for which multi-recycling is a requirement.
Losses during reprocessing and fabrication must be below 1% and
probably in the region of 0.1%. In addition the transmutation per-
formance was investigated for different types of reactors: thermal
neutron reactors, critical fast reactors, and subcritical source-
driven reactors. In thermal reactors minor actinides act as poison,
and a higher percentage of U-235 is needed to maintain criticality
when Np and Am are recycled. When all MAs are recycled, MA
inventory is dominated by the buildup of Cm. So this fuel would
be very difficult to handle. For the transmutation using fast reac-
tors they compared the transmutation performance for homoge-
neous and heterogeneous recycling modes, and for reactors using
different fuels (oxide fuel, nitride fuel, metal fuel) and different
coolants (Na, lead, He). For homogeneous recycling mode they con-
cluded that the effect of coolant choice in fast reactor design will
be negligible from the viewpoint of the MA transmutation. Inde-
pendent on the coolant choice the MA transmutation effectiveness
is almost 7.5–7.7% per year. The transuranics (TRU) consumption
rate was investigated for continuous recycle of TRU-based fuel,
and they concluded that the TRU consumption rate depends on
the conversion ratio; the maximum theoretical consumption rate
of 1 g/MWt-day is obtained for the zero conversion ratio because
the fuel does not contain U. They pointed out the advantage of
the heterogeneous recycling mode that less radioactive TRUs (Pu
and Np) of light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel can be used for

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2016.04.031
0306-4549/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 T. Takeda / Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53 49

driver fuels and remaining MAs (Am and Cm) can be used for target calculated by assuming that only the nuclide l is present at t = 0.
assemblies, and the potential difficulties such as recycling, han- Using the production rate, the overall fission due to the initial
dling and fabricating of target assemblies. nuclide l is calculated by
XZ
Ohki et al. presented the design of a homogeneously MA loaded T
core of JSFR (Japanese sodium cooled fast reactor) and a heteroge- OFl ¼ rkf ðtÞN~ k ðtÞ/ðtÞdt ð2Þ
neously MA loaded core with Am bearing fuel (Ohki et al., 2007). k 0

They proposed an effective loading method of Am targets; the

ring-shaped target loading pattern between the inner and the
outer core regions is favorable for achieving satisfactory core char-
acteristics and MA transmutation.
Fujimura et al. proposed the sodium cooled fast reactor (SFR)
core concept in which MA was transmuted using target assemblies
with moderator (Fujimura et al., 2011). The zirconium-hydride was
chosen as the moderator. They found that the use of the moderator
rods in target assemblies by 25% the MA transmutation amount
becomes maximum and sodium void reactivity is 20% smaller than
that of a reference homogeneous core with no MAs.
Lena Andriolo et al. proposed SFR concepts (CFV core) with the
sodium plenum and confirmed that the sodium plenum had a
potential to reduce the sodium void reactivity without spoiling
core performance (Andriolo et al., 2012).
The purpose of our study is to achieve harmonization of a large
amount of MA transmutation and reduction of sodium void reac-
tivity by designing homogeneous and/or heterogeneous MA loaded
cores with the sodium-plenum. To increase MA transmutation
amount it is necessary to increase MA contents in fuel. In the
ASTRID core the MA content is set to 2% for Am in the homoge-
neous MA loading case, and 10% in the heterogeneous loading
case (Andriolo et al., 2012). In this study we are planning to
increase the MA content up to about 20%. To understand core char-
acteristics of such MA transmutation cores we have to calculate
MA transmutation processes in detail. To calculate detailed trans-
mutation processes we developed a new method to understand
MA transmutation processes for individual MA nuclides (Takeda
et al., 2014). In this method we introduced two definitions of the
MA transmutation, and decomposed them into four terms. The
method is briefly described in Section 2 to show the physical
meanings of the terms introduced in reference Takeda et al.
(2014). Numerical results obtained by the methods are shown in
Section 3 for 750 MW(e) MA transmutation fast rector cores.
Section 4 draws some conclusions.
2. Calculation method of MA transmutation
Usually the MA transmutation is defined by the difference of
MA amounts before and after a burnup period. However, this
definition of MA transmutation does not clearly explain the MA
transmutation processes of individual MA nuclides such as Np,
Am, Cm. The transmutation of individual MA nuclides are dependent
on neutron flux, burnup period and neutron spectrum. Therefore, we
developed a new method to calculate the MA transmutation of indi-
vidual MA nuclides (Takeda et al., 2014). Let us briefly describe the
new definition of transmutation of each MA nuclide.
In this new method we first perform the conventional burnup
calculations, and store the burnup-dependent fluxes in individual
regions which are used in the second step calculation. In the sec-
ond step, we consider only the relevant MA in each region, and per-
form burnup calculations using the flux obtained in the first step.
In this second step calculation a nuclide k will be produced from
the original nuclide l. So we can calculate the production rate of the
nuclide k at time T from the initial nuclide l as
~ k ðTÞ=N
Plk ¼ N ~ l ð0Þ ð1Þ
~ l ð0Þ is number density of nuclide l at time 0 and N
where N ~ k ðTÞ is
number density of nuclide k at time T. These number densities are
where rkf ðtÞ is the fission cross section of nuclide k at time t, /ðtÞ is
the neutron flux at time t and R means summation over all nuclides
k produced from the initial nuclide l. This includes all the fissions
caused by the initial nuclide l. Furthermore, the production of other
MA nuclides except the initial nuclide l can be calculated by
X
~ l ð0Þ
OMAl ¼ N P lk ð3Þ
k2MA;k–l
The Pu and U production from the nuclide l is given by
X
~ l ð0Þ
PUl ¼ N P lk ð4Þ
k2U:Pu
The production of the nuclide l from Pu and U is given by
X
PUMl ¼ ~ k ð0ÞPkl
N ð5Þ
k2U:Pu
The production of the nuclide l from other MAs is given by
X
MAMl ¼ ~ k ð0ÞPkl
N ð6Þ
k2MA;k – l
Therefore, the net transmutation of nuclide l is calculated by
TR1l ¼ OFl þ OMAl þ PUl  PUMl  MAMl ð7Þ
When we consider the total MA transmutation for all MA
nuclides, the second and the fifth terms cancel each other. There-
fore the total transmutation is given by
X X
TR ¼ TR1l ¼ ðOFl þ PUl  PUMl Þ ð8Þ
l l
Thus we can also define the MA transmutation of the nuclide l
by
TR2l ¼ OFl þ PUl  PUMl ð9Þ
The above transmutation rate is composed of two terms; first
is the amount of incineration rate by fission and the second is
the net transmutation rate to fuel (U and Pu). The first term is
denoted as overall fission, and is composed of the direct fission
of the relevant nuclide plus the fission of other nuclides trans-
muted by decays or neutron reactions. The net production rates
of U and Pu are calculated from the difference between the produc-
tion rates of U and Pu from the relevant MA nuclide and the MA
production from the initial U and Pu.
Let us discuss the difference between TR1 and TR2. TR1 is
defined by the difference of amounts of nuclide l before and after
burnup and contains the MA amount of other MA nuclides trans-
muted from the relevant MA nuclide. TR2 does not contain the
amount and is composed of the overall fission and the net Pu
production as explained above. Using the two formulas we will
explain the MA transmutation for individual MA nuclides in the
next section.
3. Numerical results of MA transmutation
The above two formulas have been applied to two type of MA
loading patterns in a sodium-cooled fast reactor. One is the homo-
geneous MA loading pattern in cores as shown in Section 3.1, and
the other is the heterogeneous MA loading pattern in the blanket
region as shown in Section 3.2.
50 T. Takeda / Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53

Table 3
Amount of Pu isotopes produced after 1 year burnup (kg).

Pu isotopes Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Cm-244 MA total

Pu-238 39.4 32.3 0.0 0.0 71.8
Pu-239 0.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 1.1
Pu-240 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.5 0.7
Pu-241 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Pu-242 0.0 14.3 0.0 0.0 14.3

for Am and that in the heterogeneous loaded cores was set to

(a) XY cross section (b) RZ cross section
Fig. 1. Cross section view of a fast reactor core.
Table 1
Specification of fast reactor core.
Fuel composition TRU (LWR60GWd/t - 30y)
HM composition Pu enrichment (Pu/HM) 26.5/27.7
(inner/outer) MA content (MA/HM) 6.4/6.7
[wt%]
Thermal power of reactor [MWth] 1765
Burnup period 1 year, 6 years
3.1. Homogeneous MA loading
First the above formula of the MA transmutation has been
applied to the homogeneous MA loading pattern in a sodium-
cooled fast reactor shown in Fig. 1. The core has the internal blan-
ket region and the sodium plenum region above the inner and the
outer core. This core was selected because the core has a safety fea-
ture: In case of ULOF (Unprotected Loss Of Flow) accidents, the
sodium in the sodium plenum region is boiled because the sodium
temperature becomes high near the top of the core, and many neu-
trons born in the core leak out through the plenum region in the
axial direction. Therefore the sodium void reactivity becomes small
or negative at the beginning of accident. So the rapid power
increase is suppressed, and the power excursion is controlled.
The fuel is made from the trans-uranium discharged from BWR
(boiling water reactor) and PWR (pressurized water reactor) with
average discharge burnup of 60GWd/t and cooling time of
30 years.
In the present calculation we considered an initial core with the
Pu enrichment of 26.5% and 27.7% in the inner and the outer cores,
respectively. The MA content defined by MA amount to total heavy
metal is 6.4% and 6.7% in the inner and the outer cores. In the
design studies of ASTRID’s low sodium void effect core named
CFV, MA content in the homogeneous loaded cores was set to 2%
10% for Am (Andriolo et al., 2012). We are designing low void reac-
tivity core with increased MA content up to 20 wt% unlike the
ASTRID core.
The electric power is 750 MW and the thermal power is
1765 MW (see Table 1). The MA transmutation amounts after
and before 1 and 6 year burnup were calculated. As a nuclear data
JENDL-4.0 (Sugino et al., 2012) was used, and diffusion theory cal-
culations were performed to obtain flux distributions in 70 energy
groups.
Table 1 shows the specification of the core and fuel used for cal-
culations. We calculated MA transmutation amounts after 1 and
6 years burnup, and considered the effect of burnup period to
MA transmutation amounts. The initial MA amounts loaded in
cores are 522.2 kg for Np-237, 1111.1 kg for Am-241 and
139.8 kg for Am-243. Thus the total amount of MA loaded in the
core is 1.79 ton. Using the present method we have calculated
MA transmutation amounts for individual initial MA nuclides using
Eqs. (7) and (9).
Table 2 shows the MA transmutation amounts defined by TR1
and TR2, and their components OF, PU, PUM, OMA and MAM for
1 year burnup. After one year burnup, the MA decreases by 5.5%
in total. For Np-237 the initial amount of 522.2 kg decreases by
49.4 kg which corresponds to 9.5% decrease. For Am-241, the initial
amount of 1111.1 kg decreases by 1139 kg which corresponds to
10% decrease. For Am-243 the initial amount is 139.8 kg, and
increases by 2.4 kg. These differences correspond to TR1 in Table 2.
Because of the increase of Am-243 and Cm-244 the decrease of
total MA is only 5.5%.Next let us discuss about TR2, which
expresses the transmutation due to fission and net Pu production.
For Np-237 TR1 is close to TR2. However for Am-241 TR2 is about
half of TR1. This is because the production of Am-242m and Cm-
242 which is included in OMA (other MA production) is very large.
The plutonium production denoted by PU is larger than the overall
fission term (OF) by about 2–3 times for Np-237 and Am-241. For
Am-243 PU is rather small, and the production of Am-243 from Pu
and Cm-244 from Am-243 is large. Therefore TR2 is more negative
than TR1.
Next let us consider the amounts of Pu isotopes produced from
individual MA nuclides shown in Table 3. For Np-237 the main iso-
tope is Pu-238, and for Am-241 Pu-242 production is rather large
in addition to Pu-238. Table 4 shows the component of overall

Table 2
MA transmutation amounts for individual nuclides and the components after 1 year burnup (kg).

Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Cm-244 MA total

Initial amount 5.22E+02 1.11E+03 1.40E+02 1.31E+01 1.79E+03
TR1* 4.94E+01 1.13E+02 2.35E+00 9.84E+00 9.85E+01
TR2** 5.06E+01 6.23E+01 1.26E+01 2.30E01 9.85E+01
OF 1.22E+01 2.29E+01 2.00E+00 4.17E01 3.81E+01
PU 4.03E+01 4.72E+01 2.15E01 4.61E01 8.81E+01
PUM 1.85E+00 7.76E+00 1.48E+01 6.47E01 2.77E+01
OMA 3.32E01 5.04E+01 1.06E+01 4.17E01 6.19E+01
MAM 1.57E+00 1.60E04 3.73E01 1.05E+01 6.19E+01
*
TR1 = OF + PU  PUM + OMA  MAM.
**
TR2 = OF + PU  PUM.
 T. Takeda / Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53 51

Table 4 Table 6
Contributions of various fissions to OF after 1 year burnup (kg). Amount of Pu isotopes produced after 6 years burnup.

Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Pu isotopes Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Cm-244 MA total

OF [kg] 1.216E+01 2.283E+01 2.003E+00 Pu-238 137.0 201.0 0.0 0.0 338.0
Contribution of nuclides [kg] Pu-239 13.4 18.3 0.0 0.0 31.8
Np-237 10.7 Am-241 19.4 Am-243 1.8 Pu-240 0.8 1.1 4.7 1.9 8.5
Pu-238 1.4 Am-242m 1.3 Cm-244 0.2 Pu-241 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.4
Cm-242 1.0 Pu-242 0.0 57.4 0.0 0.0 57.5
Pu-238 0.9

fission (OF). As is easily seen the direct contribution of the relevant Table 7
nuclide to fission is remarkable. Contributions of various fissions to OF after 6 years burnup.
In the following we investigate the MA transmutation after
Np-237 Am-241 Am-243
6 years burnup. Table 5 shows the MA transmutation amounts OF [kg] 8.80E+01 1.81E+02 1.48E+01
and the components. The decrease of the total MA amount is Contribution of nuclides [kg]
33.2%, which corresponds to 6 times of the MA decrease for the Np-237 49.3 Am-241 87.4 Am-243 8.5
1 year burnup. However, in this case, the MT transmutation Pu-238 34.7 Pu-238 45.4 Cm-244 4.5
Pu-239 3.7 Am-242m 27.4
amounts expressed by TR1 and TR2 are almost the same, this is Cm-242 8.1
especially observed for Am-241. The component OF for Np-237 Pu-239 4.6
and Am-241 is about 8 times larger than that in Table 2 though Pu-242 3.8
the burnup period is only 6 times larger. Therefore the rate of OF Cm-243 3.3
in TR2 is 0.37 and 0.43 for Np-237 and Am-241. This rate of OF
should be compared with that of 0.24 and 0.36 for the 1 year bur-
nup. Furthermore for Am-241 it should be noted that the Am-241
production from MA nuclides other than Am-241 is 78.4 kg, and is
only 1.6 times of the result of the 1 year burnup. This leads to TR1-
close to TR2. Table 6 shows the amounts of Pu isotopes produced
for the 6 years burnup. Unlike the 1 year burnup the Pu-239
amount is relatively large. Therefore in OF the contributions of
Pu-238, Pu-239, Am-242m, Cm-242 are large in addition to the rel-
evant MA nuclide as shown in Table 7. Thus for the 6 year’s burnup,
the contribution of overall fission in the MA transmutation
increases compared to the 1 year burnup case. In order to investi-
gate the trend we have extended the burnup period to 12 years,
and calculated the MA transmutation amount TR and the compo-
nents OF, PU, PUM, OMA and MAM. Here the sum of all MA
nuclides was considered, and in this case TR1 coincides with TR2
as explained before. The components OMA and MAM are equal
to each other, and the curves of the components are overlapped.
The time dependence of the parameters are shown in Fig. 2 using
Fig. 2. Time dependence of MA transmutation parameters.
the results for the burnup periods of 1, 6, 9 and 12 years. It is inter-
esting to note that the overall fission term OF increases linearly as
the burnup period, but the Pu production term PU shows satura-
tion behavior after 9 years. This is because all the number densities 3.2. Heterogeneous MA loading
vary according to the exponential function. The MA transmutation
amount TR is equal to OF + PU  PUM, and the TR increases with Next we show the results for the heterogeneous MA loading
burnup time, but its gradient with respect to burnup time case in target assemblies loaded in the blanket region. The reactor
decreases as shown in Fig. 2. power is 750 MW(e), and this is the same as in the homogeneous
Therefore it is noted that the total MA transmutation amount loading case. The cycle length was selected to be 19.8 months
increases with burnup time, but its gradient with respect to bur- and 6 batch refueling was assumed. In order to estimate the effect
nup time decreases after 9 years, and the transmutation amount of moderator pins of ZrH2 we changed the volume ratio of the
by overall fission increases almost linearly with burnup time. moderator pins in target assemblies from 15% to 60%.

Table 5
MA Transmutation amount for individual MA nuclides and the components after 6 years burnup (kg).

Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Cm-244 MA total

Initial amount 5.22E+02 1.11E+03 1.40E+02 1.31E+01 1.79E+03
TR1* 2.29E+02 4.97E+02 1.03E+01 4.82E+01 5.95E+02
TR2** 2.34E+02 4.19E+02 4.41E+01 1.06E+01 5.95E+02
OF 8.80E+01 1.81E+02 1.48E+01 2.68E+00 2.89E+02
PU 1.55E+02 2.83E+02 4.95E+00 2.00E+00 4.45E+02
PUM 8.71E+00 4.50E+01 6.38E+01 1.53E+01 1.39E+02
OMA 1.93E01 7.84E+01 4.09E+01 2.68E+00 1.21E+02
MAM 5.49E+00 3.04E02 7.13E+00 3.89E+01 1.21E+02
*
TR1 = OF + PU  PUM + OMA  MAM.
**
TR2 = OF + PU  PUM.
52 T. Takeda / Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53

Table 8 2465.9 and 479.6 kg for the 25% moderator case, 1841.7 and
Pu enrichment and MA contents in fuels in cores and MA target assemblies in blanket. 358.2 kg for the 50% moderator case, and 1461.2 and 284.2 kg for
Volume ratio of moderator 15% 25% 50% 60% the 60% moderator case.
pins Table 9 shows the MA transmutation amount in the inner and
Reactor power (MWe) 750 outer cores and in the target assemblies for Am-241 and total
Cycle length (Month)  batch number 19.8  6 MA evaluated by using TR1 and TR2, and the components after 6
Pu enrichment (wt%) Inner core 27.0 27.1 27.1 27.1 batch refueling. In the target assemblies about half of the MA is
Outer core 27.7 28.1 28.4 28.6
MA target 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
transmuted, and the transmuted amount is 1.1 ton and very large.
assembly However, it is found that the OF is 144 kg, and this contribution is
MA content (wt%) Inner core 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4
only 13% of the total transmutation. In other word almost all MAs
Outer core 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 are changed to Pu. The Am-241 transmutation amount in the target
MA target 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 assemblies is 892 kg for TR1 and 547 kg for TR2. In the homoge-
assembly neous MA loading case, the MA transmutation amount of Am-
241 defined by TR1 was 419 kg. So the net Am-241 transmutation
amount of 547 kg is rather large, and the heterogeneous MA load-
The Pu enrichment in the inner and the outer cores are 27–28% ing seems hopeful. However, as in the case of 1 year burnup for the
as shown in Table 8. In the fuels of the inner and the outer cores homogeneous loading, TR1 is larger than TR2 by about 63%. This
Np-237 is contained as MA, and the content ratio is 2.5%. The MA means that MA production other than Am-241 is relatively large
target assemblies in the blanket region contain Am-241 and Am- as seen in Table 9 (see OMA) in addition to the plutonium produc-
243, and the content ratio is 20%. Total amounts of Am-241 and tion (PU). The component of the overall fission (OF) in the target
Am-243 are 2846.3 and 553.6 kg for the 16% moderator case, assemblies is also about 1 tenth of TR2. Thus the rate of MA

Table 9
MA transmutation amount for the fuels in cores and the target assemblies in the blanket after 6 batch refueling (kg).

Region Inner core Outer core MA target assembly*

Nuclide Np-237 Np-237 Am-241 Am-243 Cm-244 MA Total
Initial amount 460.8 374.1 1841.7 358.2 61.1 2280.2
TR1 255.3 198.3 891.8 143.0 88.6 1128.0
TR2 254.5 197.9 546.6 8.7 44.0 1126.9
OF 60.5 53.7 52.0 4.8 7.0 143.9
PU 211.4 157.4 497.5 5.4 38.3 1009.9
PUM 17.3 13.2 2.9 18.9 1.3 26.9
OMA 1.1 0.8 345.3 167.1 31.8 561.9
MAM 0.4 0.3 0.1 15.4 164.4 560.7
*
Volume ratio of moderator pins: 50%.

Np-237 Am-241 Am-243

Fig. 3. Comparison of transmutation for Np-237 and Am-241 and Am-243 for the target MA assemblies in the blanket region.

Table 10
MA transmutation of Am-241 and total MA in the target assemblies for various volume ratio of moderator pins (kg).

MA Nuclide Am-241 Total MA

Volume ratio of moderator pins (kg) 15% 25% 50% 60% 15% 25% 50% 60%
Initial amount 2846.3 2465.9 1841.7 1461.2 3523.9 3053.0 2280.2 1809.1
TR1 821.0 862.8 891.8 862.0 998.0 1071.8 1128.0 1097.4
TR2 493.6 520.5 546.6 537.8 997.0 1070.7 1126.9 1096.3
OF 59.2 52.6 52.0 53.7 117.6 123.3 143.9 149.4
PU 435.2 469.3 497.5 487.4 892.1 964.8 1009.9 976.1
PUM 0.8 1.4 2.9 3.3 12.7 17.4 26.9 29.3
OMA 327.4 342.5 345.3 324.3 498.4 539.2 561.9 528.5
MAM 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 497.4 538.1 560.7 527.4
 T. Takeda / Annals of Nuclear Energy 95 (2016) 48–53 53

Table 11 4. Conclusion
Values of OF for MA nuclides in the target assemblies (kg).

Moderator volume ratio 15% 25% 50% 60% Using the formulas for the MA transmutation amounts we have
Am-241 59.2 52.6 52.0 53.7 investigated the transmutation processes of MA nuclides for a MA
Am-242m 24.2 34.1 49.0 52.5 transmutation fast reactor. As MA loading patterns we considered
Am-243 7.5 6.0 4.8 3.9 a homogeneous MA loading in cores and a heterogeneous loading
Cm-242 6.7 7.0 7.8 7.8
in a blanket region.
Cm-243 2.6 4.1 6.4 7.1
Cm-244 6.0 6.1 7.0 7.1 For the homogeneous MA loading case the MA content was set
Cm-245 10.7 12.8 16.0 16.3 to about 6.5%, and the MA transmutation behaviors were compared
at the burnup period of 1 year and 6 years. It was found that for the
1 year burnup the transmutation amounts calculated by TR1 and
TR2 remarkably differ each other especially for Am-241 because
of large amount of production of Am-242m, Cm-242 from Am-
241. The overall fission contribution to the transmutation amount
was rather small. However for the 6 years burnup the two MA
transmutation amounts calculated by using TR1 and TR2 are close,
and the overall fission contribution becomes large. This is due to a
lot of transmutation of original MA nuclides to Pu isotopes. It is
noted that the total MA transmutation amount increases with bur-
nup time, but its gradient with respect to burnup time decreases
after 9 years, and the transmutation amount by overall fission
increases almost linearly with burnup time.
For the heterogeneous MA loading case the transmutation
amounts calculated by using TR1 and TR2 differ remarkably as in
the 1 year burnup case for the homogeneous MA loading case.
Compared to the homogeneous MA loading case with 6 years bur-
nup, the total MA transmutation amount defined by TR2 was
almost the same as that in the homogeneous MA loading case.
However, the contribution of the overall fission to the transmuta-
tion was rather small because of the low flux level and soft neutron
Fig. 4. Comparison of neutron spectra for various volume ratio of moderator pins. spectrum in the blanket region.

transmutation by fissions is relatively small. In Fig. 3 we show Acknowledgment

transmutation rates to Pu, other MA nuclides and fissions from
the original Np-237, Am-241 and Am-243. For Np-237 the
transmutation to Pu-238 is the main contributor; for Am-241 the
transmutation toPu-238, Cm-242, Pu-242, Am-242m have large
contributions; and for Am-243 the transmutation to Cm-244 is
the main contributor. This figure explains the reason why TR1 is
larger than TR2 for Am-241.
Finally let us compare the MA transmutation amounts when the
moderator volume ratio is changed. Table 10 shows the MA trans-
mutation amounts of total MA and Am-241 for the moderator vol-
ume ratio varies from 15% to 60%. The TR1 and TR2 for the total MA
become maximum at the 50%, and similar trend is seen for
Am-241. The net Pu production expressed by PU – PUM is larger
than the overall fission term expressed by OF by a factor of
6.5–7.7. This small contribution of OF to TR1and TR2 is contrastive
to the results in the homogeneously MA loaded case.
When we compare OF for the 4 cases, OF increases for the cases
with large moderator volume ratio. The OF values for Am-241
decrease with the moderator volume ratio as shown in Table 11.
However, the OF values of Am-242m increase rapidly with the
moderator volume ratio (see Table 11). This rapid increases is
caused by the large fission cross section of Am-242m in the ther-
mal energy range and the neutron spectrum softening with the
increase of the moderator volume ratio as shown in Fig. 4.
This paper describes the plan and some results of ‘‘Study on
Minor Actinide Transmutation Using Monju Data” entrusted to
University of Fukui by MEXT.
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