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@article{197935,
        author = {Anandha Krishnan and Erlin Antony},
        title = {Accelerator Driven System (ADS) for Closing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Principles, Challenges, and Global Perspectives},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {11},
        pages = {6967-6973},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=197935},
        abstract = {Despite decades of steady progress, nuclear energy still wrestles with two deeply rooted problems: the safe long-term containment of radioactive waste and the inefficient use of available fuel resources in conventional single-pass cycles. Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) offer a technically coherent answer to both. The approach works by directing a high-energy proton beam onto a heavy-metal spallation target housed within a subcritical reactor; the resulting neutron flux is intense enough to break down long-lived minor actinides neptunium, americium, and curium into daughter products whose hazard persists for centuries rather than geological epochs. Over roughly four decades of coordinated international effort, including the ongoing construction of Belgium’s MYRRHA facility and India’s accelerator-based thorium programme, ADS has progressed from a compelling theoretical idea to a technology approaching prototype scale. This paper examines the underlying physics, key hardware subsystems, the state of major national programmes, waste-reduction metrics, outstanding engineering difficulties, and the research steps still required before ADS can be deployed industrially.},
        keywords = {accelerator driven system; subcritical reactor; spallation; minor actinides; transmutation; closed nuclear fuel cycle; MYRRHA; thorium cycle},
        month = {April},
        }