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The BN-350 fast-neutron reactor at Aktau, Kazakhstan.It operated between 1973 and 1994. A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV, on average), as opposed to slow thermal neutrons used in thermal-neutron reactors.
A fast reactor is therefore more efficient than a thermal reactor for using plutonium and higher actinides as fuel. These fast reactors are better suited for the transmutation of other actinides than thermal reactors. Because thermal reactors use slow or moderated neutrons, the actinides that are not fissionable with thermal neutrons tend to ...
The pool-type reactor design of the EBR-II provides passive safety: the reactor core, its fuel handling equipment, and many other systems of the reactor are submerged under molten sodium. By providing a fluid which readily conducts heat from the fuel to the coolant, and which operates at relatively low temperatures, the EBR-II takes maximum ...
A thermal-neutron reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses slow or thermal neutrons.. ("Thermal" does not mean hot in an absolute sense, but means in thermal equilibrium with the medium it is interacting with, the reactor's fuel, moderator and structure, which is much lower energy than the fast neutrons initially produced by fission.)
It is not a complete fast reactor instead using mostly epithermal neutrons, which are between thermal and fast neutrons in speed. The hydrogen-moderated self-regulating nuclear power module (HPM) is a reactor design emanating from the Los Alamos National Laboratory that uses uranium hydride as fuel.
The nuclear fuel cycle employs a full actinide recycle with two major options: One is an intermediate-size (150–600 MWe) sodium-cooled reactor with uranium-plutonium-minor-actinide-zirconium metal alloy fuel, supported by a fuel cycle based on pyrometallurgical reprocessing in facilities integrated with the reactor. The second is a medium to ...
Some more-advanced light-water reactor designs are expected to achieve over 90 GWd/t of higher-enriched fuel. [3] Fast reactors are more immune to fission-product poisoning and can inherently reach higher burnups in one cycle. In 1985, the EBR-II reactor at Argonne National Laboratory took metallic fuel up to 19.9% burnup, or just under 200 GWd ...
A fast neutron reactor uses fast neutrons, so it does not use a moderator. Moderators may absorb a lot of neutrons in a thermal reactor , and fast fission produces a higher average number of neutrons per fission, so fast reactors have better neutron economy making a plutonium breeder reactor possible.