Study on material attractiveness aspect of spent nuclear fuel of LWR and FBR cycles based on isotopic plutonium production

• The paper analyzes the plutonium production of recycling nuclear fuel option.
• To evaluate material attractiveness based on intrinsic feature of material barrier.
• Evaluation based on isotopic plutonium composition of spent fuel LWR and FBR.
• Even mass number of plutonium gives a significant contribution to material barrier, in particular Pu-238 and Pu-240.
• Doping MA in FBR blanket is effective to increase material barrier from weapon grade plutonium to more than MOX fuel grade.

Recycling minor actinide (MA) as well as used uranium and plutonium can be considered to reduce nuclear waste production as well as to increase the intrinsic aspect of nuclear nonproliferation as doping material. Plutonium production as a significant aspect of recycling nuclear fuel option, gives some advantages and challenges, such as fissile material utilization of plutonium as well as production of some even mass number plutonium. The study intends to evaluate the material attractiveness based on the intrinsic feature of material barrier such as plutonium composition, decay heat and spontaneous fission neutron components from spent fuel (SF) light water reactor (LWR) and fast breeder reactor (FBR) cycles. A significant contribution has been shown by decay heat (DH) and spontaneous fission neutron (SFN) of even mass number of plutonium isotopes to the total DH and SFN of plutonium element, in particular from isotopic plutonium Pu-238 and Pu-240 contributions. Longer decay cooling time and higher burnup are effective to increase the material barrier (DH and SFN) level from reactor grade plutonium level to MOX grade plutonium level. Material barrier of plutonium element from spent fuel (SF) FBR in the core regions has similarity to the material barrier profile of SF LWR which can be categorized as MOX fuel grade plutonium. Plutonium compositions, DH and SFN components are categorized as weapon grade plutonium level for FBR blanket regions with no doping minor actinide (MA) case. Doping MA in the FBR blanket regions is effective to increase the material barrier level from weapon grade plutonium to MOX fuel or more grade level. Moreover, increasing material barrier of plutonium isotopes can be achieved effectively by increasing Pu-238 production as main contributor for LWR and FBR core regions, and from converted MA in the FBR blanket which affects directly to increase DH and SFN components.