ADS-related activities at IAEA: From accelerators, neutron sources to fuel cycle and databases

The ADS-related activities at the IAEA address nuclear science and nuclear energy topics, and are implemented as a joint effort between the Departments of Nuclear Sciences and Applications and Nuclear Energy. The IAEA is pursuing efforts on utilising accelerators and research reactors to support the basic and applied research, provide intense neutron sources, characterise and qualify materials of nuclear interest and concomitantly, train and qualify a highly educated nuclear workforce. At the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, environmental concerns linked with the long half-life radioisotopes generated from nuclear fission have led to increased R&D efforts to develop a technology aimed at reducing the amount of radioactive waste through transmutation in either fast fission reactors or ADS. In the framework of the project on Technology Advances in Fast Reactors and Accelerator-driven Systems, the IAEA has implemented a number of initiatives on utilisation of plutonium and transmutation of long-lived radioactive waste, accelerator-driven systems, thorium fuel options, innovative nuclear reactors and fuel cycles, non-conventional nuclear energy systems, and fusion/fission hybrids. This paper gives an overview of IAEA's accelerator-related activities in nuclear science for materials development, and partitioning and transmutation of nuclear waste.