Materials research is a field of key relevance for innovative nuclear systems, such as Generation IV reactors, critical and sub-critical transmutation systems and fusion devices.
Subsequently, the produced neutrons drive the nuclear transmutation in the sub-critical reactor.
The overall progress is presented, including that in conceptual designs and related R&D activities of fusion-fission hybrid reactors for fissile nuclear fuel breeding or so-called fusion-driven sub-critical systems for both nuclear waste transmutation and fuel production.
We report the status, design, R&D, and upgrade outlook including applications using spallation neutron, muon, fast neutron, and proton, as well as related programs including medical therapy and accelerator-driven sub-critical reactor (ADS) programs for nuclear waste transmutation.
As a concept of lead bismuth cooled accelerator driven sub-critical reactor, ADS-NWT was proposed for nuclear waste transmutation by FDS Team.
This concern has led to increased R&D efforts to develop a technology aimed at reducing the amount and radio-toxicity of long-lived radioactive waste through transmutation in fission reactors or sub-critical systems.
The Chinese ADS development program consists of three stages, and during the first stage, a 10 MWth lead-based research reactor named CLEAR-I will be built with subcritical and critical dual-mode operation capability for validation of ADS transmutation system and lead cooled fast reactor technology.
Such sub-critical Accelerator Driven Systems (ADSystem) can be used for transmutation or incineration of long-lived radioactive waste by neutron captures or neutron induced fission.
These neutrons can be used to drive a sub-critical nuclear assembly for energy generation and/or for the transmutation of the long-lived nuclear waste isotopes to environmentally safer nuclear species.
A design concept and the performance characteristics for a fusion transmutation of waste reactor (FTWR)—a sub-critical fast reactor driven by a tokamak fusion neutron source are presented.
A preliminary conceptual design of dual-cooled long-lived radioactive waste transmutation blanket for the Fusion-Driven sub-critical hybrid System (FDS) is presented on the basis of feasible plasma physics and technology level i.e. the neutron wall loading is assumed to 0.5 Mwith with availability of 50%.
