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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Xiang Meng, Zhongwei Yuan, Taihong Yan, Weifang Zheng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 7 | July 2023 | Pages 1101-1107
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2169041
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The traditional evaporation process has obvious disadvantages when treating uranyl nitrate with a uranium concentration less than 10 g/L, such as more ancillary equipment, high energy consumption, and high cost. By contrast, nanofiltration equipment has low integration, and multivalent cations can be rejected effectively by nanofiltration membranes. In this work, a spiral-wound DK1812 nanofiltration membrane with an area of 0.325 m2 was used to treat a uranium nitrate solution with a uranium concentration of 10 g/L. The uranium concentration in the permeate is 16.91 mg/L, which means that the uranium rejection rate is 99.83% and the permeate flux of the solution is 71.1 L/(m2·h) under the conditions of a feed temperature of 30°C, a tangential velocity of 30 cm/s, and a transmembrane pressure of 1.5 MPa.
