Abstract
The article considers the possibility of producing plutonium suitable for spacecraft radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RITEG) using the americium fraction of minor actinides (MA) as a starting material. It was intended to place such starting material in the central fuel assemblies of the VVER-1000 light water reactor and the BREST-1200 fast reactor with lead coolant. The preference of using only the Am fraction of MA instead of the Np fraction and the mixed Np-Am fraction of MA has been demonstrated. The main advantage of the Am fraction is the fundamental impossibility of occurrence of the undesirable isotope 236Pu in plutonium with the hard γ radiation of its decay products. A comparison of the conditions for production of plutonium suitable for RITEGs in the VVER-1000 and BREST-1200 reactors indicates a higher rate of production of such plutonium in the BREST-1200 fast reactor.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 22-22–00287.
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Translated by I. Moshkin
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Shmelev, A.N., Geraskin, N.I., Apse, V.A. et al. Using the Am Fraction of Minor Actinides for the Production of Plutonium Suitable for Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators. Phys. Atom. Nuclei 86, 1965–1968 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063778823090223
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063778823090223