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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
Eric Lukosi
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 188 | Number 3 | December 2017 | Pages 294-302
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2017.1367248
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the computational performance of microfluidic channels (MFCs) within a semiconductor detector to monitor changes in the elemental and isotopic composition of a UOX pressurized water reactor used nuclear fuel dissolved in a KCl/LiCl molten salt. The results indicate that the use of MFC limits alpha energy loss sufficiently enough to use energy windowing techniques in spectral analysis. It was found that elemental and isotopic changes as low as 1% may be feasible, with the time to detection (TTD) ranging from seconds to hours. The TTD is inversely dependent on the number of MFCs within the sensor and the activity of the element/isotope undergoing concentration transients.