HIGH-TEMPERATURE NUCLEAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGY BASED ON SODIUM-COOLED FAST REACTORS FOR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION

摘要

Studies show that in principle it is possible by relying on the BN-600 design to secure the required parameters of a reactor setup with a fast reactor with high-temperature sodium coolant (BN-VT) for hydrogen production. The calculations for 600 MW(t) BN-VT for electricity and hydrogen production based on solid-oxide electrolysis of water taking account of a fundamentally different method of purification -removal of hydrogen and tritium from the sodium by vacuum pumping through special membranes - have shown that the efficiency of such a system is ～40% and hydrogen production volume is 2.8·10~4 liters/sec. The purification of hydrogen by removing tritium to a concentration ensuring the maximum admissible hydrogen concentration in the hydrogen produced 3.26 Bq/liter, imposes additional requirements on the hydrogen removal system.