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Breeder Reactors BREEDER REACTORS Dr. BC Choudhary Applied Science Department NITTTR, Chandigarh. Nuclear Power Plants A very important aspect of NPPs efficient utilization and management of nuclear fuel. Presently most of the reactors in operation are all essentially “Burner Reactors” which use only the uranium 235U. This isotope is present to the extent of less than 1% in naturally occurring uranium. In the nuclear reactors naturally occurring uranium is used as nuclear fuel. A nuclear power plant needs about 4 tones of fuel (in the form of uranium oxide) for every Megawatt of electricity and this requirement will be met by the reasonably assured resources. Evident that a difficult situation will arise if the present design technology continues to be used. Naturally occurring uranium contains three isotopes, U234, U235 and U238 with relative percentage of these isotopes as . U234 0.006 percent . U235 0.711 percent . U238 99.283 percent. Of these isotopes, only U235 undergoes spontaneous fission when subjected to bombardment by slow neutrons. It is in fact the only naturally occurring “Fissile material”. A nuclear reactor utilizing only U235 as fuel is called a “Burner Reactor”. All reactors working in present day nuclear power plants are essentially burner reactors waste the abundant U238 isotope present in naturally occurring uranium. Nuclear Fuel Materials Uranium is the principal fuel material for nuclear reactors. Many other materials are essential to make use of Uranium as fuel in reactor core. Uranium and Thorium Nuclear fuels Zirconium Zircalloy (Zr, Sn, Cr, Fe, Ni) - cladding Beryllium Neutron source, moderator, reflector Heavy Water or Graphite Moderators Niobium-Tantalum Structural material and electronic components Rare Earths (Na, Cd,…) Control rods and nuclear fire extinguishers Heluim Cover gas Uranium fuel is loaded once in a year and fuel capacity is 61 tones for a 235 MWe PHWR. Principal fuel operations in NPPs Uranium Ores Source material for Uranium-Plutonium cycle is raw Uranium ore chiefly in the form of primary minerals, Pitch blende Uraninite . These are oxides of variable composition ranging from UO2 to U3O8 and are generally represented by aUO2 . bUO3 Ratio b/a varies from 2 to 0. Also called “Yellow cake” Processing of Uranium Uranium Enrichment- Centrifuge Nuclear Fuel Cycles Basic materials for nuclear reactors Uranium & Thorium . Operation of nuclear fuel starting from excavation of the ore to the final disposal of nuclear waste via fabrication of fuel elements, in core utilization and reprocessing. In present day reactors a large amount of 238U is always present and 239Pu is produced as bye- product. Uranium-Plutonium Fuel Cycle However, in a given time the total number of 239Pu nuclei produced is less than the number of 235U nuclei consumed. Uranium-Plutonium Breeding Thorium- Uranium Cycle . Source material for Thorium-Uranium cycle is “Monazite Ore” . Most abundant deposits of monazite ore bearing sands are located in India, USA and Brazil. Large quantities of these also occur in Canada, Australia and Turkey. In its raw form, the ore is essentially a mixture of rare earth phosphates and contains nearly 1-5% of thorium dioxide (ThO2). As in case of Uranium, Thorium is first concentrated to 5-8% using solvent extraction or ion exchange processes. Using standard techniques, rare earths are separated and purified thorium is precipitated as oxalate, which on heating yields ThO2. If ThO2 is heated in presence of HF, one obtains ThF4 , which may be reduced to metallic thorium by heating with calcium. None of the isotopes of Thorium occurring in nature are fissile. Thermal neutron capture cross-section for Th232 is nearly three times that of U238, while fast fission cross-section of Th232 is less than that of U238. Fuel elements are made using Thorium mixed with fissile isotope of U233 or (even U235 ) but, for making the reactor critical the enrichment required is more in this case than in case of Uranium. This makes this cycle more costlier. However, the basic aim of using this fuel cycle is that the value of (breeding ratio) in thermal energy region is more in 233U than for 235U by about 10% possible to achieve a higher conversion ratio, which would lead to a more efficient fuel utilization. Thorium-Uranium Fuel Cycle Comparison of physical and chemical properties of Th and U ceramics indicates that the Th-U cycle is more advantageous. The essential difference between the Th-U and U-Pu cycles is that the former is based on the utilization of 232Th, whereas the later utilizes 238U as the basic fertile isotopes. Monazite ores contain about 5% of Thorium Thorium Vs Uranium Reactors Production of Fissile Isotopes . Although U238 is not a fissile material, it is a “Fertile material” Can be converted by neutron bombardment into a fissile material, Plutonium-239 (Pu239). Similarly naturally occurring Thorium-232 (Th232) is also a fertile material. It can be 233 converted into U which is a fissile material. The neutrons generated by fission reaction of U235 can be used in converting fertile material to a fissile material. Reactors based on above principle are called “Breeder reactors” Breeder Reactors . A breeder reactor working on the U238 to Pu239 cycle utilizes naturally occurring uranium almost completely and thereby helps to extend the supply of uranium by a factor of at least 100. Similarly a breeder reactor working on the Th232 to U233 cycle helps in utilizing the vast Thorium resources of the world. For India, Th232 to U233 cycle is of particular significance, because of fairly large deposits of Thorium in the “Monazite beach” sands in Kerala. Estimated World Thorium Resources (Reasonably assured and inferred Th resources recoverable) Country Tonnes % of total Australia 489,000 19 USA 400,000 15 Turkey 344,000 13 India 319,000 12 Venezuela 300,000 12 Brazil 302,000 12 Norway 132,000 5 Egypt 100,000 4 Russia 75,000 3 Greenland 54,000 2 Canada 44,000 2 South Africa 18,000 1 Other countries 33,000 1 World total 2,610,000 Thorium Potential in India Tuesday, August 21, 2007 India's 30% Thorium resource base can fuel for next 2500 years of Electricity India is trying hard to get a n-deal when it's a superpower in Thorium and stands 2nd in Thorium deposit with which it can be self sufficient for next 2500 years. Thorium Potentials in India Types of Breeder Reactor Breeder reactors are classified on the basis of the energy of neutrons used. In U238 to Pu239 cycle, fast neutrons released in fission are directly used to sustain the fission chain reaction, whereas in case of Th232 to U233 cycle, neutrons are being slowed down to energy 0.0235eV (Thermal Neutrons) for better yield. • Reactors designed to achieve breeding using Pu239 as fuel with fast neutrons are called fast breeder reactors (FBRs) and • Reactors designed to achieve breeding with U233 as fuel and slow neutrons are known as thermal breeder reactors (BRs). Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) . FBRs provide the key to the full utilization of the country’s Uranium resources and considerable efforts have been made to put the concept of the fast breeder in practice. Quite few Experimental Breeder Reactors have been built by now and many more are under construction in different countries . At high energies fission cross-sections of fissile isotopes are only a few barns (almost 100 times less than in thermal energy region), much more fuel is needed to sustain a chain reaction in these reactors critical mass is much greater in a fast reactor. The capture cross-sections for fertile materials are of the same order as the fission cross-sections of fissile isotopes in the high energy region. Hence for criticality the ratio of fissile fuel to fertile material in a fast reactor need to be relatively high requires highly enriched fuel (15-25%). • Use of enriched fuel and absence of any moderating materials results in very compact cores power density in these reactors is quite high. • In view of this, one requires an extremely efficient heat transfer system need for finely divided core so that a large heat transfer area becomes available. • One must use a non-moderating coolant with very good heat transfer properties with FBRs. Design studies carried out so far indicate preferences for Liquid- metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs) and Gas-cooled fast breeder reactors (GCFBRs) over other fast breeder concepts. • Although these two reactor types differ in details, the basic constraints physics considerations and design specifications in designing these are essentially the same. Fast Breeder Test Reactors (FBTR) In India, a fast breeder test reactor of LMFBR type built at Kalpakkam (TN) Critical on October 18, 1985 Uses mixed Uranium – Plutonium Carbide as fuel and liquid Sodium as coolant. General Schematic of a FBTR . GCFBRs: Also of considerable interest and are being developed particularly in Europe. In these systems gaseous Helium is used as primary slowing down effect on neutrons, the average energy of neutrons is comparatively high and this leads to larger breeding potential. LMFBR- Schematic FBTR at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGAR), Kalpakkam (TN) Schematic Flow Diagram Reactor Core Fuel used in FBTR is a mixture of plutonium carbide and natural uranium carbide (PuC:UC = 70:30) . Sintered pellets of mixed carbide stacked inside a stainless steel tube 5.1 mm diameter and 531 mm length. Pellets are kept in position in the tube by a spacer tube and a spring. FBTR CHARACTERISTICS Three stages of Indian Nuclear Power Programme Kalpakkam has the unique distinction of being the only place in the world, where all the three fissile isotopes viz., U-235 [MAPS], Pu-239 [FBTR] & U-233 [KAMINI] are used as fuel in reactors.
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