EU kNowleDge hUb foR enAbling MolteN Salt ReaCtor safety development and dEployment

To support the safe operation and the technological development of Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) technology in Europe, through the knowledge advancement in different fields of MSR research and safety assessment, connecting the needs of reactor designers and industry with the university and research centre capabilities and the regulator requirements.

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Chloride based MSRs will be developed to fission Pu with low fissile content and MA from multi-recycled fuel originating from LWR and/or LWR+FR fleets. The associated fuel salt will be fabricated and recycled in a reprocessing plant like Orano’s La Hague plant, used in addition to its existing LWR fuel treatment capabilities (including used MOX fuel), for its Pu partitioning and waste conditioning capabilities and its compatibility with chloride salts. The functionality may be completed in the future with a MA or Pu+MA advanced separation step.

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ReZilient will develop and demonstrate a completely new zinc-air flow battery technology. This technology will fill the gap between short-term electrochemical energy storage (EES) and long-term fuel storage.

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The goal of this Euratom NFRP-2 proposal is to develop and demonstrate new safety barriers for more controlled behaviour of Molten Salt Reactors in severe accidents, based on new simulation models and tools validated with experiments. The grand objective is to ensure that the MSR can comply with all expected regulations in 30 years’ time.

The application of medical isotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in e.g. oncology, neurology or cardiology relies on effective methods to produce, purify, and deliver these short-lived isotopes to the clinics. In this project, we propose to develop a promising microfluidic liquid-liquid extraction method that can be used to purify highly-radioactive medical isotopes. The projects focusses on studying the effect of radiation on such a system and the feasibility of integrating the new microfluidic seperator into current cyclotrons and nuclear reactors. The project will be performed in close collaboration with TRIUMF (Canada), NRG, and URENCO (The Netherlands). Funded by TTW OTP

The “supercritical CO2 heat removal system”, sCO2-HeRo, safely, reliably and efficiently removes residual heat from nuclear fuel. Since this system is powered by the decay heat itself it can be considered as an excellent backup cooling system for the reactor core or the spent fuel storage in the case of a station blackout and loss of ultimate heat sink or accidents that are beyond design. sCO2-HeRo is a very innovative reactor safety concept as it improves the safety of both currently operating and future BWRs (Boiling Water Reactors) and PWRs (Pressurized Water Reactors) through a self-propellant, self-sustaining and self-launching, highly compact cooling system using supercritical carbon dioxide.

The thermal-hydraulics Simulations and Experiments for the Safety Assessment of Metal cooled reactor (SESAME) project supports the development of European liquid metal cooled reactors (ASTRID, ALFRED, MYRRHA, SEALER). The project focusses on pre-normative, fundamental, safety-related, challenges for these reactors.

SAMOFAR (Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor) is one of the major Research and Innovation projects in the Horizon 2020 Euratom research programme. The grand objective of the project is to deliver a breakthrough in nuclear safety and nuclear waste management to make nuclear energy truly safe and sustainable. To this end, a new type of nuclear reactor, the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR), has been developed, whose key safety features will be demonstrated in the project.

Supercritical fluids are one of the main workhorses of modern industry. The unique properties of these fluids enable us to produce better products and make processes much more efficient. Despite their widespread application, predicting the heat transfer of these fluids has remained an unsolved problem until today. One has observed unexpected large temperature peaks in industrial processes and equipment that could not be explained by standard models or correlations. This project therefore aims to develop an accurate, physically sound design correlation for heat transfer in supercritical fluids

A variation of the aqueous production method is investigated by using a uranium salt dissolved in water that is guided along a reactor core. To this purpose, a PhD student works in the field of neutronics (numerical), fluid mechanics (numerical), testing and optimizing of different separation methods for fission uranyl solutions (experimental) and microfluidics (experimental and numerical)