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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
D. Ducret, C. Laquerbe, A. Ballanger, J. Steimetz, V. Porri, J.P. Verdin, T. Pelletier
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 1092-1096
Isotope Separation | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22752
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The separation of hydrogen isotopes is an essential element for tritium processing systems. A new process invented at the Savannah River Site, has been developed at Valduc facility: Thermal Cycling Absorption Process. This system uses palladium packed in a column to absorb a stream of hydrogen isotopes. By repeated heating and cooling cycles, the hydrogen isotopes successively desorb into a capacity and go back onto the column. The thermal cycling creates differences in the Pd separation factor for the hydrogen isotopes inducing the concentration of tritium at one end of the column and the concentration of the lighter isotopes at the other end. This paper presents experimental results obtained with a full-scale facility which has been installed in a glovebox so as to treat weakly tritiated gases. Experimental data collected on this device working with several isotopic mixtures are presented and compared to simulation results.
