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Texas A&M welcomes uranium conversion research
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) has signed a research agreement with Quantum Leap Energy (QLE) “to advance and de-risk the commercial production of high-purity uranium hexafluoride (UF6).”
QLE is an Austin, Texas–based subsidiary of ASP Isotopes (ASPI), which is developing an isotope enrichment platform for applications in nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, and semiconductors. QLE specializes in the uranium conversion step of the nuclear fuel cycle—the conversion of yellowcake uranium concentrate (U3O8) into UF6 prior to enrichment.
Joshua Ruegsegger, Connor Moreno, Matthew Nyberg, Tim Bohm, Paul P. H. Wilson, Ben Lindley
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1911-1927
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2154118
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A feasibility study of a subcritical fission-fusion hybrid reactor using lead-lithium eutectic as a coolant and minor actinides (MAs) as fuel is presented. Such a reactor could support the fission community by transmuting MAs and the fusion community by breeding tritium. The feasibility of such a reactor for the burnup of MAs is assessed in terms of burnup performance, tritium breeding, and safety characteristics. Tandem mirrors are a promising neutron source technology, and a deuterium-tritium tandem mirror is considered here for the neutron source with power Psource = 1.13 MW assumed for scoping purposes. Subcritical reactivities from keff = 0.9800 to keff = 0.9950 were considered, representing the initial reference for subcritical reactivity and the assessed upper limit, respectively. Stability analyses indicated the reactivity would be stable under perturbations of fuel, coolant, and inlet temperatures, with a positive reactivity insertion expected during reactor shutdown. This range corresponded to nuclear heating values of 150 to 650 MW and mass burn rates of 53 to 216 kg/year. The upper mass burn rate limit would require 1110 reactor years with a capacity factor of 0.9 to fission the global supply of MAs and could offset the annual U.S. MA production with eight reactors. Tritium breeding was assessed for keff = 0.9800 and 3.795% 6Li enrichment in the coolant, and a tritium breeding ratio of 1.602 0.017 was tallied, suggesting the reactor could, without elevated 6Li enrichment, produce tritium to both sustain operation and supply tritium for other fusion devices. Time-series modeling of fuel burnup was conducted for a four-batch loading scheme and three different fuel residence times at keff = 0.9800, which showed system performance would drop with burnup, and that the rate of this drop was lower for longer fuel residence times, motivating a means of reactivity control. Last, changes in fuel composition with burnup were assessed for relative concentrations of MAs, transmutation products, and fission products. The breeding of plutonium in the blanket was calculated and found to be of minimal proliferation concern.