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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.
Risto Saari
Nuclear Technology | Volume 38 | Number 2 | April 1978 | Pages 209-214
Technical Paper | Low-Temperature Nuclear Heat / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A32014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new seawater desalination method, Nord-Aqua Vacuum Evaporation, which utilizes waste heat at a very low temperature, has been developed. The requisite vacuum is obtained by a barometric column and siphon, and the dissolved air is removed from the vacuum by water flows. According to test results from a pilot plant, the process is operable if the waste heat exists at a temperature 7 K higher than ambient. The pumping energy that is then required is 38 kJ/kg, or 1.5% of the heat of vaporization of water. Calculations reveal that the method is considerably superior economically to conventional distilling methods.