Materials chemistry for fast reactors

Fast reactors are important candidates for India for realizing sustainable nuclear energy. As a result, India has placed considerable emphasis on the establishment of a large fast reactor programme. Fast reactor fuels have a large concentration of plutonium, the coolant used is liquid sodium and the control rod material is enriched boron carbide. All these choices present interesting challenges to the material chemist. In addition, the fuel cycle, consisting of fuel fabrication, fuel reprocessing and waste management also offers a number of opportunities for R and D in materials chemistry, such as development of novel processes for synthesis of fuel materials and development of matrices for immobilization of waste. The metallic fuels will be reprocessed through pyro processing route involving molten salt and liquid metals as the media for processing. This again is an area which will benefit from R and D in materials chemistry. The talk would highlight selected examples of the materials chemistry issues indicated above. (author)