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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.
J. T. Holmes, C. R. F. Smith, M. M. Osterhout, W. H. Olson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 32 | Number 3 | March 1977 | Pages 304-314
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT77-A31754
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Purity control of the primary and secondary scdium systems at the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) is by essentially continuous cold trapping of small side streams of the total sodium inventories. The EBR-II cold traps are effective for the control of the major chemical impurities, i.e., oxygen and hydrogen (and also tritium). The trapping effectiveness is higher for hydrogen (NaH) than for oxygen (Na2O). The trap on the primary sodium system is more effective than the secondary cold trap because of higher sodium velocities and, probably, longer residence times in the crystallization zone of the primary trap. Radioisotopes such as 131I and 137Cs are not effectively trapped. New control methods may be required for these and other radioisotopes to allow the continued use of direct maintenance procedures for various plant systems.