**Brief idea about Accelerator driven Sub-critical reactor system (ADS/ADSR)

for waste management

Accelerator-driven subcritical reactor (ADSR) is a new-type (hybrid) of nuclear reactor based on

the idea of coupling a fission reactor to a particle accelerator.

All conventional nuclear reactors are critical reactors, in which the number of neutrons released by
fission is exactly balanced by the number lost by leakage and absorption by various material inside
the reactor. This balance is responsible for maintaining a constant reactor power (self-sustained
chain reaction) at any desired level.

An ADSR relies on a subcritical reactor, in which more neutrons are absorbed than generated and a
self-sustained chain reaction is not possible. To run such a device at a constant fission (and power)
level, additional neutrons are created by bombarding a heavy metal target (such as lead) inside the
reactor with a high-energy proton beam supplied by an accelerator (a process known as spallation).
A fraction of the reactor's energy output is in turn used to power the accelerator.

The main advantages of an ADSR are increased safety (and therefore better public acceptance of
nuclear power), and greatly reduced radioactive waste production. ADSR relies on the external
accelerator-driven neutron source. If the accelerator is stopped, the nuclear reactor will shut down
inevitably without going out of control, making it possible to operate more safely.

➢ Schematic diagram of ADSR

 ➢ Schematic diagram of ADSR

Waste Disposal using ADSR:

Apart from the production of energy, ADSRs have also been used as an effective way to transmute
(transform/annihilate) nuclear waste of the existing reactors into stable elements or those whose
radiocctivity is relatively short lived. This is because ADSRs are not required to maintain criticality,
helping to increase burnup i.e. to extract more energy from a given mass of fuel. Also the spent
nuclear fuel, after a long-time burn-up, which are discharged from the reactors can be used again in
the ADSR after a proper refining process.

Thus ADSR contributes to the solution of the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

**Note: Mainly Thourium is used in ADSR because of availability and less refining process. Also
thorium is not fissile unlike uranium-235, i.e., Thourium does not split on its own, exhibiting a half-
life of 14.05 billion years.