Xinzheng, Fangshan Dist, Beijing P.O. Box 275 Beijing 102413, PRC Tel: 86-10-6935-7676 Fax: 86-10-6935-7008 Telex: 222373 iae cnThe China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) at Tuoli, near Beijing, is a comprehensive research and production base in the nuclear research and development in China. Located in the southwest of Beijing, about 40 kilometers from the downtown city, it is quite close to the famous Zhoukoudian site, where the ancient Peking Man lived about 500,000 years ago.
Facilities include a laboratory-scale gaseous diffusion facility. Tuoli developed this enrichment process which was later installed at Lanzhou. Waste Management R&D includes HLW vitrification and waste form characterization, with pilot plants to be built.
As of the early 1960s facilities included a Soviet-supplied 7.5-10 megawatt (thermal) heavy-water moderated and cooled research reactor using 2 percent enriched uranium, and a Soviet-supplied 25-Mev cyclotron. Main facilities currently include large and medium-sized scientific research and production facilities: research reactor, zero-power reactor, high- and low-energy accelerators, large- and medium-sized computers and network system, high activity cells, etc.
CIAE is preparing, through the introduction of technology from Russia, to build an experimental 60 MW fast breeder reactor [FBR]. Having finished the feasibility study and got the approval from the China National Planning Committee, the CARR (China Advanced Research Reactor) project has entered the preliminary design phase. Facilities at CIAE's Neutron Physics Laboratory include HI-13 tandem Van de Graaf accelerator with terminal voltage of 13 MV and pulsed beam of about 1 ns width, neutron sources: D(d,n), T(p,n) and T(d,n) using deuterium or tritium gas targets. The Cockcroft-Walton accelerator has a maximum voltage: 600kv, DC beam 3-5 mA; Pulsed beam is under adjustment (expected pulse width is about 1.5 ns and average beam current is 30-50 microampears). CIAE is interested in a high intensity cyclotron of energy between 70 and 150 MeV as a primary accelerator for their exotic beam facility. The China Institute of Atomic Energy is a multidisciplinary institute under the leadership of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and Chinese Academy of sciences (CAS). CIAE is a multi-disciplinary comprehensive institute in the field of nuclear science and technology. CIAE totals 4,200 employees, including 7 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 900 senior professionals. CIAE is composed of 7 research departments, 2 research divisions and 3 production factories, and 10 monopoly capital or JV high-technology companies and 8 national laboratories of nuclear industry, e.g. national laboratory of nuclear physics (equipped with tandem accelerator) and national research centre of isotope technology. CIAE has undertaken over a thousand national research achievements in the fields of nuclear basic theoretical research, the applied research of nuclear energy and nuclear technology. It has relations in technical exchanges and co-operation with the work units concerned in more than 40 countries and regions worldwide. The major research fields include nuclear physics, nuclear data measurement and compilation, condensation physics, high-current particle beam technique, quasi-molecule laser and free electron laser, reactor engineering, accelerator engineering and technology, nuclear electronics and detector, radiochemistry, the development of radioisotopes, radiation protection, and radiation measurement.The Radiochemistry Research Institute, established in 1950s, is a major research base of back-end technology development in the nuclear fuel cycle. There are 7 laboratories dealing with nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry (including spent fuel reprocessing, actinides chemistry and fissile elements chemistry), radwastes treatment and disposal, analytical chemistry and nuclear safeguards technology. The laboratory of nuclear safety technology development is one of the key laboratories in CNNC. The Institute has 300 employees, including 14 research fellows and 66 associate research fellows.
The Radiochemistry Research Institute carries out the applied and basic research on nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear safety as well as radwastes treatment. In addition, it has developed industrial products, e.g. the oxygen meter known in saving zirconium oxide, electric needle of electrochemistry for cancer treatment, food preservative, polyester catalyst, anti-counterfeit fluorescent material, metallic halide lamp and its luminescent material, dissolved oxygen meter, etc. It has established ties with the United States of America, Belgium, Japan, Germany, Australia and Republic of Korea in the aspects of personnel and information exchanges. It also maintains close co-operation with IAEA. The Institute is authorized to confer master degree and doctorate in nuclear chemistry and engineering.
Modern, well designed nuclear material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) systems provide a cost effective and reliable way of managing Special Nuclear Material (SNM). An MPC&A system is critical at sites where nuclear material is produced, stored, or routinely handled in order to ensure that security and environmental concerns are properly addressed. A MPC&A demonstration was held in Beijing in the summer of 1998 with participation from all three of the US laboratories and Chinese institutions. It took place in the new Nuclear Safeguards Laboratory of the Office for the Control of Nuclear Materials at the China Institute of Atomic Energy. The concepts of applying modern technologies to ensure physical protection and control of nuclear materials wase demonstrated in a vault-type room containing samples of special nuclear material.The Department of Reactor Engineering and Technology (DRET) at CIAE is the premier reactor R&D base in China. It has 730 employees, including 43 research fellows and senior engineers (professors), 200 associate research fellows and senior engineers (associate professors) and 164 engineers. Under DRET are 15 research and design divisions relating to reactor physics, reactor thermal hydraulics, reactor material corrosion and protection, reactor material and radiation performance, reactor fuels and irradiated material examination, reactor fuel elements, general design of fast reactor, general design of advnaced research reactor, reactor structure design, reactor loop design, reactor control and instrumentation design, sodium technology, heavy water reactor research and operation, light-water reactor research and operation and miniature reactor, covering all sectors relating to reactor engineering and technology together with the necessary scientific research facilities.
DRET has successively designed and constructed light water reactor, heavy water research reactor, zero-power fast reactor and pool reactor, and undertaken the early-stage design and scientific research of 125 MW high-flux reactor and a large amount of scientific research in the development of China's nuclear power plant. In the period of 1978~1980, the overhaul and reconstruction of China's first nuclear reactor and a heavy water research reactor were carried out. In 1984, a strong neutron-source mini-reactor was developed.In foreign countries, the heavy water reactor, designed and constructed by the DRET for Algeria, was put into operation, and the related projects of in-pile test loop for fuel elements and post irradiation examination hot cell were also completed; the strong neutron-source mini-reactors designed and built for Pakistan, Iran and Ghana were put into operation. In China, the strong neutron-source mini-reactors were designed and constructed for Shandong Province, Shanghai and Shenzhen Special Zone; 1,900 hospitals and 350 scientific research and production units are provided with radioactive isotopes; irradiation for monocrystalline silicon neutron transymutation doping (NTD) and jewelry colour change amounts to more than half of the total in China. Besides, DRET fulfilled several significant scientific research items requested by the IAEA.
The focus of development of DRET is the design and research on research reactors and the development and application of reactor technology and nuclear power technology, and it is carrying out the design and research of China's experimental fast reactor and advanced research reactor. At the same time, much efforts are being made in research of nuclear power safety, high-performance nuclear fuels, environmental failure and aging of NPP components, equipment and materials, and nuclear fuel management.The Isotope Institute of China Institute of Atomic Energy (IICIAE), founded in the 1960s, is the largest comprehensive base for the research, development, production, application and supply of radioisotopes and their secondary products in China. In 1994, the National Research Centre of Isotope Engineering and Technology was established in the Institute upon approval of the State Committee of Science and Technology. The Institute has 500 employees, including about 100 professors, associate professors, and senior engineers. Dozens of projects of applied basic research, applied research and new product development are carried out every year. It possesses 6 research divisions and several laboratories with a total area of more than 20,000 m2; and over 20 special-purpose production lines. It is equipped with some 200 hot cells, working boxes, glove boxes and many kinds of large-scale instruments and facilities. In recent years, the Institute has supplied about 200,000 pieces of goods each year, which involve nearly 300 varieties of 68 nuclides for local and foreign markets.
The Beijing Shuangyuan Isotope Technology Co, Ltd (SITC) is a JV enterprise of the China Institute of Atomic Energy and the Nuclear Reactor Institute of Russia (NRIR), registered in September 1992. The main products, e.g. neutron source of Cf-252, radioisotopic sources of Co-60, Ir-192, etc. and their accessory instruments and equipment, are sold to China and the Asian and Pacific regions.The Chinese Nuclear Data Center, located at CIAE, is a participant in the international Nuclear Energy Agency’s Nuclear Science Committee (NEANSC) and its Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation (WPEC). The NEA Nuclear Science Committee has set up a Working Party on International Measurement Activities (WPMA) to co-ordinate differential nuclear data measurement activities.
The National Engineering Research Center for Isotopes supported by the China Institute of Atomic Energy. The Center was established in 1993 with the approval of the government. The Center has 4 main departments, namely, R & D, Marketing, Quality Control and Management. It has a total personnel of 273, including 174 engineers and technicians (73 seniors and 101 engineers), and 20 management staff members.
