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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.
Michael F. Simpson, K. Michael Goff, Stephen G. Johnson, Kenneth J. Bateman, Terry J. Battisti, Karen L. Toews, Steven M. Frank, Tanya L. Moschetti, Tom P. O'Holleran, Wharton Sinkler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 134 | Number 3 | June 2001 | Pages 263-277
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3200
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The electrometallurgical treatment (EMT) process has been designed and developed for stabilizing sodium-bonded, metallic fuel into two high-level waste forms. This process has recently been successfully demonstrated with irradiated EBR-II fuel at Argonne National Laboratory-West. Part of the EMT process is to immobilize fission-product-bearing waste salt, which results from electrorefining, in a ceramic waste form - a glass-bonded sodalite. The sodalite is formed by hot isostatically pressing salt-loaded zeolite at temperatures up to 850°C and pressures up to 100 MPa. The specific unit operations that comprise ceramic waste production include steps for salt grinding, zeolite drying, blending salt and zeolite and glass frit in a v-blender, and consolidating the powders in a hot isostatic press. The results of testing these unit operations with irradiated salt from the EMT demonstration are summarized and include some preliminary characterization of the final irradiated ceramic waste form created by this process.