Fuel despatched for China's CFR-600 fast neutron reactor

Two more shipments are due to follow this year from Elemash Machine-building plant, Rosatom’s TVEL fuel company said, which will cover the initial load of the reactor core and the first refueling.

Construction of unit 1 of what is also known as the Xiapu fast reactor demonstration project began in 2017. It is part of China's plan to achieve a closed nuclear fuel cycle. China National Nuclear Corporation announced in December 2020 that construction work had begun on a second unit at the plant.

The aim has been for the first unit to be grid connected around 2023. The reactors will be 1500 MWt, 600 MWe, with 41% thermal efficiency, using mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel with 100 GWd/t burn-up, and with two sodium coolant loops producing steam at 480°C. Later fuel will be metal with burn-up 100-120 GWd/t. Breeding ratio is about 1.1, design operational lifetime 40 years. The design has active and passive shutdown systems and passive decay heat removal.

The Elemash plant’s CFR-600 fuel fabrication facility was launched in 2021 and late last year mock-ups of control and protection system assemblies for the CFR-600 were shipped to the customer for testing of the simulation reactor core, Rosatom said. In addition to the reactor in China, there are BN-600 and BN-800 sodium-cooled fast reactors at Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in the Urals region of Russia.

"The project of fuel fabrication for CFR-600, lasting for already three years, has been a unique task for us in terms of complexity … TVEL has proved it is capable of solving outstanding tasks and being flexible for the customer’s requirements and we definitely see a great potential for the further development of our cooperation with the Chinese partners," said Oleg Grigoriyev, Senior Vice President for Commerce and International Business at TVEL Fuel Company.