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Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
Yuri Yoshihara, Etsuko Furuta, Ryu-ichiro Ohyama, Shigeaki Yokota, Yuka Kato, Tomoyuki Yoshimura, Kiyoshi Ogiwara
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 3 | April 2015 | Pages 654-657
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium is usually measured by using a liquid scintillation counter. However, liquid scintillator used for measurement will be radioactive waste fluid. To solve this issue, we have developed the method of measuring tritium samples with plasma-treated plastic scintillator sheets instead of liquid scintillator (Plasma method). With the Plasma method of 2-min plasma treatment, we had obtained measurement efficiency of 48 ± 2 % for 2 min measurement of tritium except for tritiated water. On the other hand, it needed almost 6 hours to obtain constant measurement efficiency. We tried putting silica gel beads into vials to remove H2O molecules from PS sheet surface quickly. The silica gel beads worked well and we got constant measurement efficiency within 1-3 hours. Also, we tried using other kinds of PS treated with plasma to obtain higher measurement efficiencies of tritium samples.