ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
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.
Stephen T. Lam, John Stempien, Ronald Ballinger, Charles Forsberg
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 644-648
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1290945
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Research characterizing hydrogen behavior on carbon has been primarily focused on collecting data at near-ambient temperatures and pressures for storage or for high volume applications such as fusion. Transport models of a pre-conceptual 236 MWt pebble-bed fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (PB-FHR) estimate that the production of tritium is relatively low resulting in partial pressures ranging between 0 and 20 Pa. Operating temperatures in an FHR range from 600 to 700°C. Under these operating conditions, the interaction between hydrogen and carbon is currently undefined. Since an FHR contains large quantities of carbon (reflectors, fuel, structures), the tritium behavior in carbon must be investigated in order to develop methods to control tritium release rates to the environment and material corrosion. Preliminary modeling and experiments demonstrate high performance is achieved in a carbon adsorption tower, which can reduce system release rates by greater than 99%. This research aims to (1) accurately measure hydrogen uptake and kinetics on different types of carbon at prototypic conditions and (2) use tritium transport modeling to demonstrate the potential of carbon materials for tritium capture and control.