Colloquium Announcement

Accelerator Driven Subcritical (ADS) Reactor Systems are being considered for producing nuclear power that are proliferation free, clean, ultra safe. They are likely to be cheaper than the coal and generate very low quantity of radioactive spent fuel that needs to be stored for more than 300 years. Proton beams with 1 GeV energy and 1 to 10 MW of beam power are being proposed for producing neutrons by (p, n) reactions that will be injected in the nuclear reactor subcritical core to sustain chain reaction and produce power. GeV range proton accelerators are very large in size, expensive and can be coupled to nuclear reactors that can produce power in excess of 1000 MW.  As an alternative, Electron Beams of 50 to 100 MeV are also proposed for ADS type of applications where neutrons are produced due to (ϒ, n) reaction. Neutron production by (p, n) reaction is more efficient than (ϒ, n) reaction. However for ADS applications, proton beams are viable around 800 MeV where neutron yield saturates. In case of electron beam, neutron yield saturates at 100 MeV. Here, we present an alternate approach using low energy electron accelerators to produce X ray photons that are employed for neutron generations by (ϒ, n) reactions for injecting into Sub Critical Micro Nuclear Reactor.

Threshold energy for (ϒ, n) reaction is 1.67 MeV for Be, 2.23 MeV for D2O and 5.4 MeV for Li.  Neutron Yield is estimated for 8 to 20 MeV electron beam using Be, D2O, LiD, CD4/BeD2 and W/Ta targets for 1 Ampere beam current. It has been seen that neutron yield at 10 to 20 MeV with low Z targets at 1A is 2 – 4 x 1016 n/s which is comparable with high Z targets at 100 MeV with equal beam power. Therefore, it is proposed to consider 10 to 20 MeV, 1 A electron accelerator for setting up micro reactors for power production.

Dr. K.C. Mittal did his M.Sc (Hons) in Physics from Punjab University Chandigarh in 1974 and was selected for BARC Training School in the same year. He joined as Scientific Officer in Plasma Physics Division of BARC in 1975. He completed his Ph.D from Bombay University in 1986. The topic of his thesis was, “Generation of intense impulse gigawatt electron beam in vacuum and gas filled diodes”. During 89 to 91 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell university USA and at University of New Mexico Albuquerque, USA. He worked as Invited Professor at University of PARIS 6 during September 91. He was again invited at Ecole Polytechnique Pallasseau during 2007.

His field of research has been High Power DC, RF and impulse electron beam generation and its application in research, industry and defence. His team has developed several DC and RF electron accelerators from 500 keV to 10 MeV and up to 30 kW beam power. Many industrial applications like cross linking have been demonstated . Pulse power systems have been employed for HPM and Flash X ray applications. He was alos associated with Basic Research and Development in Industrial electron accelerators and applications, Pulsed electron accelerators and applicationss and SCRF Cavities for accelerators. He has more than 250 publications in journal and conferences. He has been Head Accelerator and Pulse Power Division and Project Manager Electron Beam Center, BARC and retired in May 2014. After retirement, he has been working as a consultant to industry for Electron beam Radiation Processing.