NUCLEAR POWER SYSTEM OPERATING PROCESS Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: nuclear power engineering; nuclear power systems incorporating two or more reactors. SUBSTANCE: minor actinides are extracted from spent fuel, granulated, and granules are uniformly mixed up with aluminum granules to form fuel mixture from these ingredients that contains 12 - 13.5 atom percent of minor actinides and is used as first charge of fast homogeneous reactor; after this fuel mixture is charged in reactor core and melted therein, reactor is brought to critical state and minor actinides are burned out; part of burnt-out fuel is discharged from circulating circuit and fission products are removed, core is refueled with fuel mixture to maintain its critical condition as well as with aluminum, and minor actinide content of fuel mixture is brought to 3 - 3.5 atom percent; this minor actinide content is maintained in reactor core up to end of actinide burn-out process at level attained; in addition, starting fuel assembly is placed in reactor core for melting fuel mixture, and reactivity control elements are partially and/or fully brought out of core; in addition, reactor core container is heated for melting fuel mixture; upon extracting minor actinides from radioactive fuel Al+MA alloy is produced from these actinides and aluminum which is granulated before charging it into reactor core. EFFECT: provision for burning out highly radioactive and long-living products of fuel irradiation (minor actinides), reduced mass of spent plutonium and radioactive wastes subject to disposal. 4 cl, 1 dwg