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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.
Qiufeng Yang, Jianbang Ge, Yafei Wang, Jinsuo Zhang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 11 | November 2020 | Pages 1769-1777
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1757976
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The electrochemical behavior of La2O3 was investigated in LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK, 46.5-11.5-42.0 mol %) eutectic at 700°C. In the electrochemical tests, two kinds of working electrodes, i.e., tungsten and graphite, were utilized. The present study showed that La3+ ions can be deposited in the form of La metal on a tungsten cathode or LaC2 on a graphite cathode, and O2− can be removed in the form of CO/CO2 using a graphite anode. Therefore, a graphite or tungsten cathode (for La3+ removal), and a graphite anode (for O2− removal) are good options to remove both La3+ and O2− from the molten salts. In addition to the electrochemical tests, inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy analysis was used to measure the concentration of the lanthanum element and X-ray powder diffraction techniques were applied to determine the chemical forms of lanthanum in the salt. It turned out that the solubility of La3+ in the molten FLiNaK was 6.81 × 10−4 wt% at 700°C and LaOF was formed by the chemical reactions between La2O3 and alkali fluorides during the heating process.