The first production batch of MOX (Mixed-Oxide fuel) has been uploaded into the BN-800 reactor of the Beloyarsk NPP’s 4th power block (the Sverdlovsk region). Following its first refurbishment, the power block has successfully resumed its operation.

The first batch of MOX fuel uploaded into the core of the BN-80 consists of 18 fuel assemblies (FAs). These were produced at the Mining and Chemical Combine (Zheleznogorsk city, Krasnoyarsk Region) using depleted uranium and plutonium. Unlike the enriched uranium traditionally used in the nuclear power industry, the MOX fuel tablets were made of plutonium oxide produced at power reactors and depleted uranium oxide (synthesized by defluorination of depleted uranium hexafluoride – the so-called secondary ‘tails’ of the enrichment production).

In 2020, the electric power and the fuel divisions of Rosatom are planning to upload another batch of 180 FAs into the Beloyarsk NPP’s 4th power block. There is a plan to form the BN-800 core in 2021 with full load of uranium-plutonium fuel, which will be the first time in the history of Russian nuclear power when ‘fast’ nuclear reactor is going to run using MOX fuel only.

‘Rosatom’s strategy to establish two-component nuclear power with reactors running on thermal and fast neutrons as well as nuclear fuel cycle closure has a number of goals. First and foremost, it will increase the nuclear power’s raw materials base manifold. Secondly, it will help re-use (following a recycling process) spent nuclear fuel instead of storing it. Thirdly, it will help to use and to dispose of depleted uranium hexafluoride and plutonium store at warehouses’, Vitaliy Khadeev, the Vice President of Technology Development and nuclear fuel cycle closure establishment at AO ‘TVEL’, said.

Ivan Sidorov, the director of the Beloyarsk NPP, noted: ‘We have completed the first refurbishment of the 4th power block after four years of its operation in the grid. It is important to note that this power block has two goals: to produce electric power and to trial run the elements of a prospective technology having huge impact on the future of the nuclear power industry. All our activities held as a part of the refurbishment are to facilitate safe power plant operation for many years to come, the equipment reliability and the support of its designed capacity’.

Commercial production of MOX fuel commenced in late 2018 at the Mining and Chemical Combine. To support this unique production, a wide industrial cooperation was set up under the auspices and scientific leadership of the Rosatom’s Fuel Company TVEL, which is also a supplier of MOX FAs for the Beloyarsk NPP. Previously, when launching the BN-800 reactor, a hybrid core was formed, part of which was loaded with uranium fuel produced by JSC MSZ (Electrostal city, Moscow Region), with another part loaded with trial MOX FAs produced at the Research and Development Institute of nuclear reactors (Dimitrovgrad city, Ulyanovsk Region).