Energy / Power From Accelerators

Dr. K. P. Singh

Department of Physics

Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014

Energy Sources (Various Options)

• Thermal energy (from coal)

• Hydro energy

• Wind energy

• Solar energy

• Nuclear Energy

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NUCLEAR ENERGY IS A GOOD OPTION

Uranium is a good source of energy

Competitive Costs

No Climate-change Releases

Proven Record

Concentrated Form of Energy

Thorium is also very good source of

nuclear energy for future

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Production of Nuclear Energy • Energy for research

• Nuclear Reactions with charged particles

• Nuclear Reactions with neutrons

• Reaction by bombarding photons on targets

• For Commercial Purposes

• Fission and Fusion Processes in Reactors

• Nuclear Energy from Accelerators for Commercial purpose (in progress)

• Many other applications of Nuclear Energy

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Some Issues of Fission Reactors:

For future growth of nuclear power, it will be

necessary to satisfactorily address the

troublesome issue of disposal of the nuclear

waste, in particular, long-lived transuranic

elements (TRU), e.g. Pu, Np, Am, Cm etc. and

fission products (FP), e.g. 129I, 135Cs, 99Tc, 93Zr,

107Pd etc.

Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) can solve the

Disposal Problem of TRU and transmutation of FP to keep the

environment free from radioactivity.

The ideas on the use of high intensity accelerators in nuclear

energy Development was proposed a few decades ago which

demonstrate that a commercial nuclear power plant of

adequate power can also be built provided it can be fed

externally with required intensity of accelerator-produced

neutrons.

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Nuclear fuel resources : India

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Uranium: up to 60,000 metric tons

(deposits require elaborate mining operations for extraction)

Natural Uranium contains 0.7% isotope U-235 for use as fuel (with or

without enrichment).

Thorium: ~290,000 metric tons

(Available in beach sands -requiring minimum mining

operations for extraction)

Thorium contains no fissile isotope, but it can breed into

U-233 by absorbing a spare neutron available in a nuclear

reactor, which fissions on subsequent neutron absorption.

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WHAT IS AN ACCELERATOR?

A particle accelerator is a device/machine that

uses electric fields to accelerate electrically-

charged particles to high speeds (energies)

and then to control them (beam).

An ordinary CRT television set is a simple

form of an accelerator.

Types of Accelerators

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Linear Accelerators

V. G. Accelerator, Tandem Accelerators,

LINAC etc

Cyclic Accelerators

Cyclotrons, Synchrocyclotrons and isochronous

cyclotrons, Betatrons, Synchrotrons, Electron

synchrotrons, Storage rings, Synchrotron

radiation sources etc

Main Accelerators in India

Popular in Scientific community

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Indian Accelerators

14 MV Pelletron, joint BARC-TIFR facility located at TIFR.

15 UD Pelletron at Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi.

Normally the performance of these machines is optimum for

8-14 MV. The next stage of booster, a super-conducting linear

accelerator has pushed energies of heavy ions from 5 to 10

MeV/nucleon for medium weight nuclei at both the Pelletron

accelerators.

3 MV Pelletron at Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar.

3 MV Tandetron accelerator at Hyderabad (CCCM, DAE) National

Facility for Analytical Sciences to cater the growing demand of

compositional characterization.

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1 MV Tandetron accelerator set up at IGCAR,

Kalpakkam.

6 MV Folded Tandem Ion Accelerator (FOTIA) at

BARC, Mumbai.

Variable Energy Cyclotron at Kolkata (now being

upgraded as Super Conducting Cyclotron to provide

accelerated ions up to 80 MeV/nucleon energy.

Low-Energy Variable Energy Cyclotron at

Panjab University, Chandigarh

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Principle of Acceleration at IUAC, New Delhi

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Energy Produced By Accelerators

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Presently Accelerators are generally not used for the

production of energy for commercial purposes. The

reason for this is that the energy produced by them

during Nuclear Reactions is of very small value and is

used generally for research purposes and applications in

some other fields etc.

But recently scientists are working on production of

commercial energy using accelerators.

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Some Applications Of Energy from

Accelerators in Various Fields

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Basic Nuclear Physics Research

Applied Research

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry.

Materials modification and characterisation.

Use of microbeam for biological studies.

Accelerated cluster beam research.

Production of some radioisotopes for use in medical

diagnosis.

Energy for Commercial purpose

MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATION & MODIFICATION

BY ION BEAM ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES

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The ion beam analysis techniques include:

Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA)

Scattering techniques and Channeling

Proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE)

Proton induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE)

Microbeam system for RBS, PIXE and NRA

External Microbeam facility

ACCELERATOR-BASED MASS SPECTROMETRY (AMS)

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AMS is used to quantify an isotope (10-12 - 10-15) amidst

an enormous abundance of its stable isotope.

The large sensitivity of the AMS method originates from

High energy of ions and a combination of specific

ionization properties of atoms and molecules and

nuclear physics detection techniques.

Accelerator Produced Isotopes can be used in various fields

• Cyclotron was devised by Lawrence and initially it was used to produce charged particles like protons, deuterons and alpha particles. These particles are accelerated to high energy and are bombarded on the target material. Some of the important isotopes produced by Cyclotron are given below.

1. 18F Half life: 110 min Target(s): H218O / Ne

2. 11C Half life: 20 min Target(s): N2

3. 13N Half life: 10 min Target(s): H2O

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4. Isotope to be produced: 15O

Half life 2 min

Target N2

Reactions 14N (d, n) 15O

5. Isotope to be produced : 67Ga

Half life 78 h

Target 68Zn/65Cu

Reactions 68Zn (p, 2n) 67Ga

65Cu (α, 2n) 67Ga

6. 124Te(p,2n) 123I 13.3 hours

Radioisotope production VEC Chandigarh

• A facility to produce short lived radioisotopes was developed and successfully tested at VEC Chandigarh.

• 116Cd(d, p)117Cd 2.4 hours with 4.00 MeV beam

• 45Sc(p, n)45Ti

• 63Cu(p, n)63Zn

• 79Br(p, n)79Kr

• 4.6 MeV proton beam was used.

• The lifetimes of these isotopes were 3.08 hours, 38.8 minutes and 34.9 hours , respectively

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Commercial Energy Production

Using Accelerators

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Commercial Energy Using Accelerators

If we examine all possibilities by which electricity

generation can be expanded, the nuclear power

appears to be an inevitable option. As of now, fission

chain reaction is the only way known to produce

nuclear power, while the naturally occurring uranium

and the manmade plutonium are the two key

elements that are serving as nuclear fuel.

Accelerators have extraordinary potential to address

these energy and environmental challenges.

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To meet rapidly growing demand for energy and preserve

the environment for coming generations, future energy

sources must be abundant, safe, clean and economical.

Nuclear energy is a reliable and abundant source of

electricity that does not emit greenhouse gases and

reduces dependence on foreign oil. Tremendous

opportunities, largely untapped, exist for deploying

accelerator technology to achieve sustainable and safe

nuclear energy sources with manageable waste.

Accelerator Driven Systems is also called as Hybrid Sub- critical

Reactor. A sub-critical reactor is a nuclear fission reactor in

Which the chain reaction is not sustained itself. In this kind of

reactor, additional neutrons from outside source are used.

These additional neutrons are generated by spallation produced

By high-energy protons from accelerator bombarded of a heavy

metal target inside the reactor. These neutrons can be utilized

for maintaining nuclear fission reactions in the reactor core and

achieving the purposes of the introduction of ADS

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IN ACCELERATOR DRIVEN SYSTEMS

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•Fast neutrons are used to fission out all transuranic elements

•Fuel Cycle is based on thorium (minimum nuclear waste)

•Lead as target to produce neutrons through spallation. Also acts as

neutrons moderator and heat (energy) carrier

High-current, high-energy accelerators are able to produce neutrons

from heavy elements by spallation. In this process, a beam of high-

energy protons (around 1000 MeV) is directed at a high-atomic

number target (e.g. tungsten, tantalum, uranium, thorium, zirconium,

lead, lead-bismuth, mercury) and up to one neutron can be produced

per 25 MeV of the incident proton beam.

.

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The spallation neutrons have only a very

small probability of causing additional fission

events in the target. However, the target still

needs to be cooled due to heating caused by

the accelerator beam

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In such a system, the neutrons produced by spallation would

cause fission in the fuel, assisted by further neutrons arising

from that fission. An ADS can only run when neutrons are

supplied to it because it burns material which does not have

a high enough fission-to-capture ratio for neutrons to

maintain a fission chain reaction. One then has a nuclear

reactor which could be turned off simply by stopping the

proton beam, rather than needing to insert control rods to

absorb neutrons and make the fuel assembly subcritical.

Because they stop when the input current is switched off,

accelerator-driven systems are seen as safer than normal

fission reactors.

For India, which has abundant reserves of thorium, ADS is relevant because one can also exploit its potential to design hybrid reactor systems that can produce nuclear power with the use of thorium as the main fuel. The 232Th–233U fuel cycle has the added advantage that it minimizes the production of troublesome long-lived actinide waste. The ADS-based thorium burners may need only small and limited quantities of uranium

and plutonium fuel to serve as starter seeds. In general, the additional degree of freedom provided by the

external neutron source in ADS can enable one to design reactor systems which primarily burn thorium fuel as well as make a more efficient use of the uranium fuel. Therefore, ADS seems to have the potential to provide an additional route to an efficient and economic nuclear power generation with the available uranium and thorium resources.

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Energy balance in ADS

Accelerated protons

Subcritical Core

GRID

~ 10 MWt

~ 280 MWe

Accelerator

(LINAC or Cyclotron)

Fra

cti

on

(1

-f)

of

the

en

erg

y

~20 MWe

Sp

allati

on

targ

et

neu

tro

ns

Targ

et

Fraction f of the

energy back to

drive accelerator

Energy extraction

Thorium utilizing ADS Scheme

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ADS configuration to utilize Thorium fuel (Principal Elements of ADS concepts)

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Schematic of ADS system for nuclear energy generation.

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Types of accelerator for ADS

• Basically, there are two types of proton accelerator systems for application to ADS – separated sector or orbit proton cyclotron and proton linear accelerator (LINAC). Both these high-intensity accelerator systems do not require new scientific principles to evolve but need consolidation of technologies already in application at somewhat less demanding levels. The basic characteristics of these two types, which need developments in varying technology regimes, can be summarized as follows

• Designs of separated sector cyclotrons have been proposed to achieve a 10-MW beam power, but this is generally seen as upper limit for a Cyclotron. Cyclotrons give continuous beam.

• The high-energy proton LINACs built so far have been designed for pulsed beam current operation. At the present technological level, it seems feasible to achieve proton energy of 1 GeV or more and produce as much as 100 mA beam current from this type of accelerator.

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Chandigarh Cyclotron

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Oscillator, Main Magnet and D-system

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Analyser Magnet

Scattering Chamber Area (PIXE & PIGE)

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Control Room and Quadrupole magnet power supplies

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Proposal for a New Accelerator at Panjab University

A new accelerator called Tendetron (5 MV) was

technically approved by various committee constituted by

DST. This machine is capable of producing very high beam

intensity which can be used to produce some isotopes.

Almost all elements can be accelerated by this machine

but light ions are more useful for production of

radioisotopes.

Nowadays a new proposal is with DST for 6 MV Tendetron

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LAYOUT OF TANDETRON ACCELERATOR SYSTEM

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THANKS

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