Estimate of the Sources of Plutonium-Containing Wastes Generated from MOX Fuel Production in Russia
In Russia, mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is produced in a pilot facility ''Paket'' at ''MAYAK'' Production Association. The Mining-Chemical Combine (MCC) has developed plans to design and build a dedicated industrial-scale plant to produce MOX fuel and fuel assemblies (FA) for VVER-1000 water reactors and the BN-600 fast-breeder reactor, which is pending an official Russian Federation (RF) site-selection decision. The design output of the plant is based on production capacity of 2.75 tons of weapons plutonium per year to produce the resulting fuel assemblies: 1.25 tons for the BN-600 reactor FAs and the remaining 1.5 tons for VVER-1000 FAs. It is likely the quantity of BN-600 FAs will be reduced in actual practice. The process of nuclear disarmament frees a significant amount of weapons plutonium for other uses, which, if unutilized, represents a constant general threat. In France, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, and Japan, reactor-grade plutonium is used in MOX-fuel production. Making MOX-fuel for CANDU (Canada) and pressurized water reactors (PWR) (Europe) is under consideration Russia. If this latter production is added, as many as 5 tons of Pu per year might be processed into new FAs in Russia. Many years of work and experience are represented in the estimates of MOX fuel production wastes derived in this report. Prior engineering studies and sludge treatment investigations and comparisons have determined how best to treat Pu sludges and MOX fuel wastes. Based upon analyses of the production processes established by these efforts, we can estimate that there will be approximately 1200 kg of residual wastes subject to immobilization per MT of plutonium processed, of which approximately 6 to 7 kg is Pu in the residuals per MT of Pu processed. The wastes are various and complicated in composition. Because organic wastes constitute both the major portion of total waste and of the Pu to be immobilized, the recommended treatment of MOX-fuel production waste is incineration or calcination, alkali sintering, and dissolution of sintered products in nitric acid. Insoluble residues are then mixed with vitrifying components and Pu sludges, vitrified, and sent for storage and disposal.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-Eng-48
- OSTI ID:
- 802922
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-145931-REV-1; TRN: US0300207
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Meteorological Society 22th Conference on Cloud Physics, Ogden, UT (US), 06/03/2002--06/07/2002; Other Information: PBD: 1 Dec 2001
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
BELOYARSK-3 REACTOR
COMBUSTION
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
HYDROXIDES
NITRIC ACID
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
ORGANIC WASTES
PLUTONIUM
PRODUCTION
PWR TYPE REACTORS
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
SITE SELECTION
WASTES