Paper - Institute for Nuclear Materials Management

Assessing China's Plutonium Separation and Recycling Programs

| July 2020

This paper was presented at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management 2020 Annual Meeting.

China pursues actively its closed fuel-cycle policy. In 2010, it began testing a pilot civilian reprocessing plant (50 tHM/year). In 2015, China began construction of the demonstration reprocessing plant (200 tHM/year). China has also been negotiating with France over the purchase of a commercial reprocessing plant with a capacity of 800 tHM/year. China’s Experimental Fast Reactor (20 MWe) started operation in 2010. Construction of the CFR-600 demonstration fast reactor began in 2017. This work will assess those plutonium separation and recycling programs. Further, it will estimate their cumulative plutonium production and discuss the potential uses of separated plutonium in China’s fast reactors over next two decades.

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation:

Hui Zhang,  “Assessing China’s Plutonium Separation and Recycling Programs.”  Paper presented at the Nuclear Materials Management 61st Annual Meeting,  July 12-16, 2020.