On the Feasibility of Minor Actinides Transmutation in a Low Aspect Ratio Tokamak Fusion Reactor

Transmutation characteristics of minor actinides in a transmutation reactor based on a Low Aspect Ratio (LAR) tokamak are investigated. One-dimensional neutron transport and burn-up calculation coupled with the tokamak systems analysis were performed to find the optimal system parameters. The dependence of the transmutation characteristics such as neutron multiplication factor, produced power and transmutation rate on an aspect ratio A in the range of 1.5 to 2.0 was investigated. By adding Pu239 in the transmutation blanket as a neutron multiplication material, it was shown that the one unit of the transmutation reactor based on the LAR tokamak producing fusion power of 150 MWth can destroy the minor actinides contained in the spent fuels produced from more than 19 units of l GWe PWRs with production of the power being in the range of 0.9 - 3.4 GWth.