Table of Contents
How safe is a molten salt reactor?
MSRs are walk-away safe. They cannot melt down like conventional reactors because they are, by design, already molten. An operator cannot even force an MSR to overheat.
What is the fuel in a molten salt reactor?
Function. In the normal or basic MSR concept, the fuel is a molten mixture of lithium and beryllium fluoride (FLiBe) salts with dissolved low-enriched uranium (U-235 or U-233) fluorides (UF4). The core consists of unclad graphite moderator arranged to allow the flow of salt at about 700°C and at low pressure.
Can molten salt reactors use nuclear waste?
“[B]ecause it will be a fast reactor with a molten fuel, it will be able to use nuclear waste as a fuel and burn it up over time. “These fission products generally decay to background levels in about 300 years, as opposed to over 10,000 years for conventional solid-fuel reactors waste,” Elysium explains on its website.
What happened to molten salt reactors?
The MSR program closed down in the early 1970s in favor of the liquid metal fast-breeder reactor (LMFBR), after which research stagnated in the United States. As of 2011, ARE and MSRE remained the only molten-salt reactors ever operated.
How does a molten salt reactor?
The IMSR® uses a Generation IV reactor technology. It uses a molten salt as coolant and fuel. This is in contrast to water circulating through a highly pressurized cooling system and solid fuel, both of which are the signature features of Generation I, II and III conventional reactors.
Why does molten salt explode in water?
Basically, the molten salt is so hot that it superheats the relatively cool water, causing it to undergo a shockingly fast phase change from a liquid to a vapor. Once it turns into steam, the water rapidly expands and leads to the explosion.
Are molten salt reactors still used today?
Molten Salt Reactors 1 Molten salt reactors operated in the 1960s. 2 They are seen as a promising technology today principally as a thorium fuel cycle prospect or for using spent LWR fuel. 3 A variety of designs is being developed, some as fast neutron types. 4 Global research is currently led by China.
What are the requirements of fuel salts?
Fuel Salts Must Integrate Reactor Physics, Heat Transfer, and Material Compatibility • Reactor physics requirements – Low neutron absorption • Thermal neutron absorption is of lower importance for fast spectrum reactors – Radiolytic stability under in-core conditions – Dissolve fissile materials
What happens to fission products in liquid-fuel MSR?
In liquid-fuel MSR designs the fission products dissolve in the fuel salt and are ideally removed continuously in an adjacent online reprocessing loop and replaced with fissile uranium, plutonium and other actinides or, potentially, fertile Th-232 or U-238. Meanwhile caesium and iodine in particular remain secure in the molten salt.
What is the difference between TRISO and molten salt fuel?
SINAP sees molten salt fuel being superior to the TRISO fuel in effectively unlimited burn-up, less waste, and lower fabricating cost, but achieving lower temperatures (600°C+) than the TRISO fuel reactors (1200°C+). Near-term goals include preparing nuclear-grade ThF 4 and ThO 2 and testing them in a MSR.