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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.
Yu Ponkratov, E. Batyrbekov, M. Khasenov, K. Samarkhanov, Ye Chikhray
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 4 | May 2021 | Pages 327-332
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1887714
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper describes the technology of creating a surface source of high-energy tritium ions and alpha particles formed as a result of a nuclear reaction of the interaction of the 6Li isotope with thermal neutrons .
Different design versions of the developed irradiating ampoule devices are presented, and a description of the experimental reactor facility is given. The paper also describes the scheme of reactor experiments to study the spectral-luminescent characteristics of nuclear-excited plasma of argon. The results of test experiments are presented, and they show the applicability of high-energy tritium ions and alpha particles for nuclear excitation of luminescence of inert gas mixtures.