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INL makes first fuel for Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment
Idaho National Laboratory has announced the creation of the first batch of enriched uranium chloride fuel salt for the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE). INL said that its fuel production team delivered the first fuel salt batch at the end of September, and it intends to produce four additional batches by March 2026. MCRE will require a total of 72–75 batches of fuel salt for the reactor to go critical.
Muthar R. Al-Ubaidi, James N. Anno
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 16 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 464-468
Technical Paper | Special Section: Cold Fusion Technical Notes / Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A29108
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Microspheres of lithium hydroxide (LiOH) were produced from in-flight solidification of droplets formed by the disintegration of an acoustically driven, mechanically vibrated cylindrical liquid jet of molten LiOH. The molten material at 470 to 480°C was fed through a 25-gauge (0.0267-cm bore diameter) nozzle, interiorly electroplated with silver, under ∼27.6-kPa (4-psig) pressure, and at a mechanical vibration frequency of 10 Hz. The resulting jet issued into a 5.5-cm-diam vertical glass drop tube entraining a 94.5 cm3/s (12 ft3/h) argon gas stream at 75°C. The 100-cm-long drop tube was sufficient to allow the droplets of molten LiOH resulting from jet disintegration to solidify in-flight without catastrophic thermal shock, being then collected as solid microspheres. These LiOH microspheres were then vacuum processed to lithium oxide (Li2O). Preliminary experiments resulted in microspheres with diameters varying from 120 to 185 µim, but with evidence of impurity contamination occurring during the initial stages of the process.