Scientists at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in the US have announced they have created a suitable fuel for the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) – the test reactor that will form the basis for the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor (MCFR) that CORE POWER is planning to use for maritime applications.
According to CORE POWER, the MCRE is designed to test the fuels, materials and processes which will eventually be used in the MCFR. As such, synthesising the right fuel is a vital step in the process to get the MCRE – which is planned to be operational by 2028 – up and running. The MCRE and MCFR use molten salt as a fuel and as a coolant.
To function as a nuclear fuel, it is necessary to convert uranium into a chemical compound and dissolve it within the liquid salt in the correct proportion.“It’s like baking a cake,” said Bill Phillips, technical lead for MCRE. The key challenge was efficiency — converting over 90% of metal uranium feedstock into usable fuel salt.
Nobody has ever made this amount of uranium chloride before. We had to develop the process from scratch.
…Phillips noted.
The INL team began developing the processes and equipment needed to synthesise the fuel in 2020. Experiments have taken place at the Fuels and Applied Science Building at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex.
Other INL projects include a molten salt characterization facility and fuel salt irradiation. In 2023, the team synthesized and irradiated enriched uranium-fuelled molten chloride salt in the Molten Salt Research Temperature Controlled Irradiation experiment, advancing understanding of how such fuel will perform in commercial reactors.
The Molten Salt Flow Loop Test Bed, recently became operational and features continuous, real-time monitoring and analysis. The team’s next goal is to demonstrate full-scale production of enriched fuel MCRE salt.
To remind, a new paper by CORE POWER, NorthStandard and Lloyd’s Register (LR) has proposed a framework to support UK development of advanced, safe, small nuclear reactors as a reliable and scalable zero-emission maritime power source.
