Status of Fabrication and Dry processing technology for TRU containing Fuel

In order to continue the sustainable development of human beings and to meet the increasing demands in the future, the innovative nuclear system with enhanced safety, economy, environmental friendly waste, sustainability, and proliferation resistance is needed to be developed. Therefore, the Generation-IV nuclear system program was internationally started by eleven countries including USA from 2000. Among Gen-IV candidate nuclear systems, sodium cooled fast reactor (SFR) is expected to be commercialized firstly. According to the development plan for the advanced fuel to be used for SFR, an actinides reused closed fuel cycle is considered as a fuel cycle, and mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and metal fuel containing minor actinides (MA) is a most promising fuel for the high burn-up fuel. And, based on the advanced fuel cycle initiative (AFCI), transuranics elements (TRU) are extracted from the spent fuel in a proliferation resistant way and irradiated in a closed cycle fast reactor, which minimizes waste volume and radiotoxicity and leads to easy disposal of wastes. So it is a prosperous technology to recycle TRU in a closed cycle fast reactor. Thus, considering the accumulated spent fuel in Korea and the advanced fuel cycle development, the proliferation resistant pyroprocessing has the potential for TRU containing metal fuel for SFR in the future. The research to develop TRU containing metal fuel was begun as a long-term R and D program from 2007. The objective of this report is to investigate the status of SFR fuel technology and to bring the basic information on TRU containing fuel