• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.21-26
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• 1997

Recently, thorium is receiving increasing attention as an important fertile material for the expanding nuclear power programs around the world. The superior nuclear and physical properties of thorium-based fuels could lead to very low fuel cycle cost and make thorium reactors economically attractive. In addition, the use of thorium in reactors would permit more efficient utilization of low cost uranium reserves and reduction nuclear wastes. In this work, the nuclear characteristics of a new type thorium fueled reactor (Radkowsky Thorium Reactor) consisting seed-blanket assemblies are addressed and compared with those typical assemblies of a PWR (CE type). Also, an assessment on several advantages of thorium fueled reactors is provided. All these results are based on the HELIOS code calculation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권5호
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• pp.731-737
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• 2018

In this research paper, the thermal transport in thorium dioxide is investigated by using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics. The thermal conductivity of bulk thorium dioxide was measured to be 20.8 W/m-K, confirming reported values, and the phonon mean free path was estimated to be between 7 and 8.5 nm at 300 K. It was observed that the thermal conductivity of thorium dioxide shows a strong dependency on temperature; the highest thermal conductivity was estimated to be 77.3 W/m-K at 100 K, and the lowest thermal conductivity was estimated to be 4.3 W/m-K at 1200 K. In addition, by simulating thorium dioxide structures with different lengths at different temperatures, it was identified that short wavelength phonons dominate thermal transport in thorium dioxide at high temperatures, resulting in decreased intrinsic phonon mean free paths and minimal effect of boundary scattering while long wavelength phonons dominate the thermal transport in thorium dioxide at low temperatures.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제32권5호
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• pp.1564-1568
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• 2011

A solvent extraction separation, preconcentration and determination of thorium with a new crown, 2-ethyl-N-benzyl-4,7,10,13,16-pentaoxa-1-azacyclooctadecane (MACE), is described in the study. The amount of thorium in the aqueous phase and organic phase was determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy and Ultraviolet-Visible, respectively. Thorium loaded organic phase was quantitatively stripped in a stage by using 1.0 M $HNO_3$. Thorium was effectively extracted with MACE in the pH range of 6-7 to produce a 3:2 complex ratio in the chloroform. A highly sensitive and rapid spectrophotometric method was described for determination of trace amounts of thorium with MACE. The effective molar absorption coefficient at 281 nm is $1.98{\times}10^3\;mol^{-1}cm^{-1}$, and the system complies with Beer's law in the range from 0.464 to 2.32 ${\mu}gm\;L^{-1}$ of thorium. Thorium was also determined in standard and environmental samples.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권9호
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• pp.2926-2936
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• 2021

Rare-earth (RE) industries generate a massive amount of radioactive residue containing high thorium concentrations. Due to the fact that thorium is considered a non-economic element, large volume of these RE processed residues are commonly disposed of without treatment. It is essential to study an appropriate treatment that could reduce the volume of waste for final disposition. To this end, this research investigates the applicability of carbon-based adsorbent in separating thorium from aqueous phase sulphate is obtained from the cracking and leaching process of solid rare-earth by-product residue. Adsorption of thorium from the aqueous phase sulphate by carbon-based electrodes was investigated through electrosorption experiments conducted at a duration of 180 minutes with a positive potential variable range of +0.2V to +0.6V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Through this research, the specific capacity obtained was equivalent to 1.0 to 5.14 mg-Th/g-Carbon. Furthermore, electrosorption of thorium ions from aqueous phase sulphate is found to be most favorable at a higher positive potential of +0.6V (vs. Ag/AgCl). This study's findings elucidate the removal of thorium from the rare-earth residue by carbon-based electrodes and simultaneously its potential to reduce disposal waste of untreated residue.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권3호
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• pp.792-799
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• 2019

The present study aims to investigate the fluorination of thorium oxide ($ThO_2$) by ammonium hydrogen difluoride ($NH_4HF_2$). Fluorination was performed at room temperature by mixing $ThO_2$ and $NH_4HF_2$ at different molar ratios, which was then left to react for 20 days. Next, the mixtures were analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) at the intervals of 5, 10, 15, and 20 days, followed by the heating of the mixtures at $450-750^{\circ}C$ with argon gas flow. The characterization of $ThF_4$ was established using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy-dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). In this study, ammonium thorium fluoride was synthesized through the fluorination of $ThO_2$ at room temperature. The optimum molar ratio in synthesizing ammonium thorium fluoride was 1.0:5.5 ($ThO_2:NH_4HF_2$) with 5 days reaction time. In addition, the heating of ammonium thorium fluoride at $450^{\circ}C$ was sufficient to produce $ThF_4$. Overall, this study proved that $NH_4HF_2$ is one of the fluorination agents that is capable of synthesizing $ThF_4$.

• 대한화학회지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.56-59
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• 1961

Ion exchange procedure was studied for the separation of thorium from the acidic solution obtained by means of decomposition of monazite with alkali solution. Present cation exchange method consists of adsorption of cations from the sample solution (ca. 0.6N HCl acidic) onto Amberlite IR-120 resin, elution of all of the rare earth cations with 700 ml. of 2N Hydrochloric acid, and recovery of the thorium by elution with 200ml. of 6N sulfaric acid. Thorium recovery by the ion-exchange method mentioned above, was quantitative, and it is concluded that this ion-exchange method may be used not only for industrial separation of thorium from rare earths but also for quantitative determination of thorium with relative error, ${\pm}1.0.$.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제47권3호
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• pp.315-322
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• 2015

The research carried out on thorium-based fuels indicates that these fuels can be considered as economic alternatives with improved physical properties and proliferation resistance issues. In the current study, neutronic assessment of $UO_2$ in comparison with two $(Th-^{233}U)O_2$, and $(Th-^{235}U)O_2$ thorium-based fuel loads in a heavy water research reactor has been proposed. The obtained computational data showed both thorium-based fuels caused less negative temperature reactivity coefficients for the modeled research reactor in comparison with $UO_2$ fuel loading. By contrast, $^{235}U$-containing thorium-based fuel and $^{235}U$-containing thorium-based fuel loadings in the thermal core did not drastically reduce the effective delayed neutron fractions and delayed neutron fractions compared to $UO_2$ fuel. A provided higher conversion factor and lower transuranic production in the research core fed by the thorium-based fuels make the fuel favorable in achieving higher cycle length and less dangerous and costly nuclear disposals.

• 에너지공학
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.52-64
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• 2016

토륨은 우라늄에 비해 풍부한 자원으로서의 가치와 핵분열 물질인 U233을 증식하고, 장주기 액티나이드 핵종 발생이 감소하는 특성으로 인해 원자력 연구개발 초기부터 우라늄 주기와 함께 주요 연구대상이었다. 하지만 토륨은 자체적으로 핵분열이 불가능하므로 에너지원으로 활용하기 위해서는 별도의 외부 중성자원이 필요하고, 토륨 주기 과정에서 고방사성 물질이 발생하며, 효과적인 증식을 위해서는 긴 시간의 중성자 조사가 필요했다. 이에 따른 기술적 어려움과 연구개발 필요성의 감소로 1970년대 중반 이후 토륨 관련 연구가 거의 중단되었다. 하지만 1990-2000년대에 에너지 자원에 대한 사회적 시각 변화와 외부 중성자 공급원으로 이용하는 가속기 구동 원자로의 출현으로 과거 토륨주기의 단점으로 지목되었던 성질들이 오히려 핵확산 저항성과 감시성을 높이고, 가속기 구동 원자로의 미임계 운전 특성에 의한 원자력 안전성 증대라는 장점으로 부각되어 토륨에 관한 연구가 세계적으로 활발히 추진되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 토륨주기의 장단점을 우라늄주기와 비교, 분석하고 가속기 구동형 원자로를 이용한 토륨 연구의 기술 현황을 분석한다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제2권4호
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• pp.273-278
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• 1970

국내에서 채광한 자연방사능광물의 분석의뢰를 계기로 이에 관심을 갖고 Uranium와Thorium 의 함유량을 원광으로부터 비파괴적이고 간단한 ${\gamma}$-선 분광법으로 측정 분석하여 보았다. Ge(Li) 측정기를 ${\gamma}$-선 분광에 이용한 결과는 재래식방법에 비하여 분석정도를 훨씬 높일 수 있었으며, 자연방사능측정법과 원자로중성자로 조사시킨 activation법으로 Uranium와 Thorium의 함유량을 분석하였던바 하나의 시료(인천에서 채광)에서는 약 0.5%의 Uranium, 또 다른 시료에서는 2%의 Th와 0.1%의 U이 포함되어 있음이 확인되었다. 우리가 처음 시도한 이 분석법은 경제적이고 간편.신속하게 분석할수 있어 핵연료물질조사에 널러 이용할 수 있음을 입증한다.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1998년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.52-57
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• 1998

In this paper, we performed a design study of a thorium fueled reactor according to the design concept of the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor (RTR) and evaluated its overall performance. To enhance its performance and alleviate its problems, we introduced a new metallic uranium fuel, uranium-zirconium hydride (U-Zr $H_{1.6}$), as a seed fuel. For comparison, typical ABB/CE-type PWR based on SYSTBM 80+ and standard RTR-type thorium reactor were also studied. From the results of performance analysis, we could ascertain advantages of RTR-type thorium fueled reactor in proliferation resistance, fuel cycle economics, and back-end fuel cycle. Also, we found that enhancement of proliferation resistance and safer operating conditions may be achieved by using the U-Zr $H_{l.6}$ fuel in the seed region without additional penalties in comparison with the standard RTR's U-Zr fuelr fuelel