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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.
Isao Murata, Shingo Tamaki, Sachie Kusaka, Indah Rosidah Maemunah, Fuminobu Sato, Hiroyuki Miyamaru, Shigeo Yoshida
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 4 | May 2023 | Pages 465-475
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2151280
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fusion reactor is known as a neutron-rich nuclear energy source. In this paper, neutrons are utilized to form an epithermal neutron irradiation field for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). Using the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) facility, a beam shaping assembly (BSA) was designed and placed just before the biological shield. Treatments were planned to be carried out just outside the biological shield. An opening was prepared in the vacuum vessel to guide deuteron-triton neutrons to the BSA. The BSA is about 1 m in thickness, and on the outside surface of the BSA, an epithermal neutron flux of 1 × 109 n/s‧cm−2 was aimed. As a result of the design, the irradiation field successfully met the design criteria of the BSA advocated by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The BSA moderator consists of a first filter of 45-cm-thick iron and a second filter of 70-cm-radius and 40-cm-thick AlF3. The epithermal neutron beam was available for diameters from 10 to 20 cm to cope with various sizes of tumors. Also, a titanium layer was specially introduced to remove fast neutrons just above 10 keV to reduce the fast neutron contribution. In addition, a caldera-shaped collimator was set just outside of the BSA to form a broad beam and to make the current-to-flux ratio larger than 0.7. It was shown from the present design that the performance was confirmed to be excellent compared to other BNCT facilities available at present, meaning that even deep-seated cancer treatment could be realized in the future in ITER.