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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Martha S. Okamoto, Major C. Thompson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 43 | Number 2 | April 1979 | Pages 126-131
Technical Paper | The Back End of the Light Water Reactor Fuel Cycle / Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A16303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A coprocessing solvent extraction flowsheet for recovery and purification of light water reactor (LWR) fuels has been developed. This flowsheet never completely separates uranium from plutonium. The flowsheet has changed operation of the partitioning contactor to achieve partial partitioning of uranium and plutonium. Partial partitioning has been demonstrated with simulated feeds and irradiated LWR fuel solutions with hydroxylamine nitrate reductant to concentrate the plutonium by factors of 6 to 27.4. Nitrite was shown to interfere with the reduction of plutonium. Increased hydroxylamine concentrations gave normal reduction behavior.