Transmutation characteristics of minor actinides in a low aspect ratio tokamak fusion reactor

• Optimum radial build for the LAR tokamak transmutation reactor through the self-consistent calculation.
• Dependence of the transmutation characteristics on the aspect ratios.
• Additional effects of Pu239 in transmutation blanket for minor actinides destruction.
• Transmutation of the minor actinides using by a compact transmutation reactor based on the LAR tokamak.

The transmutation characteristics of minor actinides in the transmutation reactor of a low aspect ratio (LAR) tokamak are investigated. One-dimensional neutron transport and burn-up calculations coupled with a tokamak systems analysis were performed to determine optimal system parameters. The dependence of the transmutation characteristics, including the neutron multiplication factor, produced power, and the transmutation rate, on the aspect ratio A in the range of 1.5–2.0 was examined. By adding Pu239 to the transmutation blanket as a neutron multiplication material, it was shown that a single transmutation reactor producing a fusion power of 150 MWth can destroy minor actinides contained in the spent fuels for more than 38 units of 1 GWe pressurized water reactors (PWRs) while producing a power in the range of 1.8–6.8 GWth.