Open AccessPreliminary Study on Minor Actinide Incineration in RSG-GAS without Isotope Separation
Author(s) -
R. Andika Putra Dwijayanto,
Muhammad Alfarisie
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ganendra
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2503-5029
pISSN - 1410-6957
DOI - 10.17146/gnd.2021.24.2.6241
Subject(s) - incineration , actinide , isotope , radiochemistry , irradiation , chemistry , environmental science , waste management , nuclear chemistry , nuclear physics , physics , engineering
Minor actinides (MA) resulted from nuclear power plants is often considered as nuisance in spent fuel management due to its considerably long half-life. One of available strategies to deal with MA is to incinerate it, in order to reduce its radioactivity. This paper presents a study on MA incineration in RSG-GAS research reactor. Unlike previous study, this work did not separate the MA into individual isotopes, but incinerated as a whole. ORIGEN2.1 code is employed to calculate MA incineration within RSG-GAS core. MA composition used in this study consists of Np, Am, and Cm isotopes. The Central Irradiation Position (CIP) of RSG-GAS is loaded by 6 kg of MA and irradiated for two years. The result shows that about 1 kg of MA were incinerated after two years of irradiation, or 18,87% of the initial concentration. However, the increase of Cm-242 isotope, along with newly-formed Pu isotopes, were found to be significantly increasing short-term radioactivity compared to un-irradiated MA. Thus, two years-worth of MA incineration cannot be considered as effective, and other strategies must be pursued.