Concept of a small-scale accelerator driven system for nuclear waste transmutation, part 1. Target optimization

Recently, the transmutation of nuclear waste seems to be a solution of the most serious problem of nuclear energy. Since the past decade numerous conceptions of critical and sub-critical reactors dedicated to waste incineration were published. Mainly, because of safety problems, the proton accelerator driven sub-critical systems seem to be preferred. An alternative concept is based on electron–neutron (e–n) converter neutron source. In this paper after a short presentation of molten salt e–n converter (MSENC) transmuter concept, the target optimization for this device is given in details.