5 replies on “Review on Internal Targets uses in Particle Accelerators”
Nice combination of ideas.
Question: what are the parents of the long-lived and very toxic Th-229 and Ra-225. If the parents can be early transmuted to other species, then the Th and Ra could be avoided.
Thank you for the comments. Th-229 is a fissile material and can be fissioned by neutrons. Also Th-229 isomer is very useful for applications to the precise atomic clock. Half life of Ra-225 is about 15day, so it may be not so harmful even its large radio-toxicity.
The parent of Th-229 is U-233 which is very few in the U-Pu cycle reactor wastes but very toxic. Such non trans-uranium nuclei can be transmuted by fast neutrons.
Am I understanding correctly that the NX system with the gas filled pipe would require one to place the wastes to be transmuted just outside the beam pipe? That seems like it would present many practical difficulties for inserting and removing the wastes. Is the NX system proposed over the MERIT system merely for efficiency reasons? If so, what are the relative efficiencies of the two systems? Or are there other reasons why NX may be preferred to MERIT?
Thank you for the comments.
We have many practical difficulties for NX system with the gas filled ERIT to be overcome but one of the most difficulties is radiation problem, obviously. However, the radiation level of LLFPs and MAs are not so serious because of their very long lifetime. Probably in case of MuCF ERIT, the main source comes from 14MeV neutrons, however, their yields are less than 10 times smaller than that of the nuclear fusion reactor even such as ITA which is under construction.
The reason why we are thinking the MERIT-MuCF for NX system is its efficiency. The estimated efficiency of neutron production could be almost 5-10 times improved by MERIT-MUCF compared with the d-accelerator based NX.
FFA'20
5 replies on “Review on Internal Targets uses in Particle Accelerators”
Nice combination of ideas.
Question: what are the parents of the long-lived and very toxic Th-229 and Ra-225. If the parents can be early transmuted to other species, then the Th and Ra could be avoided.
Thank you for the comments. Th-229 is a fissile material and can be fissioned by neutrons. Also Th-229 isomer is very useful for applications to the precise atomic clock. Half life of Ra-225 is about 15day, so it may be not so harmful even its large radio-toxicity.
The parent of Th-229 is U-233 which is very few in the U-Pu cycle reactor wastes but very toxic. Such non trans-uranium nuclei can be transmuted by fast neutrons.
Am I understanding correctly that the NX system with the gas filled pipe would require one to place the wastes to be transmuted just outside the beam pipe? That seems like it would present many practical difficulties for inserting and removing the wastes. Is the NX system proposed over the MERIT system merely for efficiency reasons? If so, what are the relative efficiencies of the two systems? Or are there other reasons why NX may be preferred to MERIT?
Thank you for the comments.
We have many practical difficulties for NX system with the gas filled ERIT to be overcome but one of the most difficulties is radiation problem, obviously. However, the radiation level of LLFPs and MAs are not so serious because of their very long lifetime. Probably in case of MuCF ERIT, the main source comes from 14MeV neutrons, however, their yields are less than 10 times smaller than that of the nuclear fusion reactor even such as ITA which is under construction.
The reason why we are thinking the MERIT-MuCF for NX system is its efficiency. The estimated efficiency of neutron production could be almost 5-10 times improved by MERIT-MUCF compared with the d-accelerator based NX.