Activation analysis of the impacts of impurities in irradiated beryllium for recycling and reuse in fusion reactors

Recycling and reuse of radioactive materials in fusion reactors to avoid or reduce the need of land burial disposal has been a trend in the international fusion radwaste management research. Recycling and reuse of the irradiated neutron multiplier of beryllium would be of great value. In this contribution, the activation of beryllium in multiple irradiation cycles was performed, and the impacts of the impurities on the recycling and reuse of beryllium were analyzed. The results showed that the activation of beryllium was close to its maximum value after 10 to 20 irradiation cycles. Recycling of beryllium could be achieved within tens of years of cooling after shutdown only when the acceptance criterion for contact dose rate was above 1 Sv/h of magnitude level. (authors)