Advanced fuel developments for an industrial accelerator driven system prototype

Fuel to be used in an Accelerator Driven System (ADS) for transmutation in a fast spectrum can be described as a highly innovative concept in comparison with fuels used in critical cores. ADS fuel is not fertile, so as to improve the transmutation performance. It contains plutonium and a high concentration of minor actinides (~50%). This unusual fuel composition results in high gamma and neutron emissions during its fabrication, as well as degraded performance of the core. So, an optimal ADS fuel is based on finding the best compromise between thermal, mechanical, chemical, neutronic and technological constraints. CERCER and CERMET composite fuels consisting of particles of (Pu,MA)O2 phases dispersed in a magnesia or molybdenum matrix are under investigation within the ongoing European Integrated Project EUROTRANS (EUropean Research prOgramme for TRANSmutation), which aims to perform a conceptual design of a 400MWth transmuter: the European Facility for Industrial Transmutation (EFIT). Performance and safety of EFIT cores loaded with CERCER and CERMET fuels have been evaluated. Out-of-pile and in-pile experiments are being carried out to gain knowledge on the properties and the behaviour of these fuels. The current paper gives an overview of the work progress.