India’s first indigenously developed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor
September 23 , 2018 2255 days 1035 0
India’s first indigenously developed 500-megawatt (MW) Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu is expected to achieve criticality in 2019.
Criticality is the event of a nuclear reactor reaching self-sustained chain reaction. i.e., no external source of neutrons is required to sustain fission in the reactor core.
PFBR has been designed indigenously by Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR).
It generates power by burning mixed uranium-plutonium MOX fuel, a mixture of PuO2 and UO2.
It is a pool-type reactor with 1,750 tonnes of sodium as coolant.