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Molten Salt Reactors
A molten-salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a mixture of molten salt with a fissile material. Two research MSRs operated in the United States in the mid-20th century. The 1950s Aircraft Reactor Experiment (ARE) was primarily motivated by the technology's compact size, while the 1960s Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) aimed to demonstrate a nuclear power plant using a thorium fuel cycle in a breeder reactor. Increased research into Generation IV reactor designs renewed interest in the 21st century with multiple nations starting projects. On October 11, 2023, China's TMSR-LF1 reached criticality, and subsequently achieved full power operation, as well as Thorium breeding. Properties MSRs eliminate the nuclear meltdown scenario present in water-cooled reactors because the fuel mixture is kept in a molten state. The fuel mixture is designed to drain without pumping from the core to a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molten Salt Reactor
A molten-salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a mixture of molten salt with a fissile material. Two research MSRs operated in the United States in the mid-20th century. The 1950s Aircraft Reactor Experiment (ARE) was primarily motivated by the technology's compact size, while the 1960s Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) aimed to demonstrate a nuclear power plant using a thorium fuel cycle in a breeder reactor. Increased research into Generation IV reactor designs renewed interest in the 21st century with multiple nations starting projects. On October 11, 2023, China's TMSR-LF1 reached Criticality (status), criticality, and subsequently achieved full power operation, as well as breeder reactor, Thorium breeding. Properties MSRs eliminate the nuclear meltdown scenario present in water-cooled reactors because the fuel mixture is kept in a molten state. The fuel mixture is designed to drain with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light-water Reactor
The light-water reactor (LWR) is a type of thermal-neutron reactor that uses normal water, as opposed to heavy water, as both its coolant and neutron moderator; furthermore a solid form of fissile elements is used as fuel. Thermal-neutron reactors are the most common type of nuclear reactor, and light-water reactors are the most common type of thermal-neutron reactor. There are three varieties of light-water reactors: the pressurized water reactor (PWR), the boiling water reactor (BWR), and (most designs of) the supercritical water reactor (SCWR). History Early concepts and experiments After the discoveries of fission, moderation and of the theoretical possibility of a nuclear chain reaction, early experimental results rapidly showed that natural uranium could only undergo a sustained chain reaction using graphite or heavy water as a moderator. While the world's first reactors ( CP-1, X10 etc.) were successfully reaching criticality, uranium enrichment began to develop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Process Heat
Process heat refers to the application of heat during industrial processes. Some form of process heat is used during the manufacture of many common products, from concrete to glass to steel to paper. Where byproducts or wastes of the overall industrial process are available, those are often used to provide process heat. Examples include black liquor in papermaking or bagasse in sugarcane processing. Requirements The required temperature of the process varies widely, with about half the industrial process heat having operating temperatures above . These higher-temperature processes can generally only be supplied by dedicated supplies like natural gas or coal, although pre-heating from other sources is also common in order to reduce fuel use. Those processes operating below the median can draw on a much wider variety of sources, including waste heat from other processes in the same industrial process. Resistive heating would in theory be a possible source of process heat but even a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Efficiency
In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency (\eta_) is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc. For a heat engine, thermal efficiency is the ratio of the net work output to the heat input; in the case of a heat pump, thermal efficiency (known as the '' coefficient of performance'' or COP) is the ratio of net heat output (for heating), or the net heat removed (for cooling) to the energy input (external work). The efficiency of a heat engine is fractional as the output is always less than the input while the COP of a heat pump is more than 1. These values are further restricted by the Carnot theorem. Overview In general, energy conversion efficiency is the ratio between the useful output of a device and the input, in energy terms. For thermal efficiency, the input, Q_, to the device is heat, or the heat-content of a fuel that is c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor
The advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) is a type of nuclear reactor designed and operated in the United Kingdom. These are the generation II reactor, second generation of British gas-cooled reactors, using Nuclear graphite, graphite as the neutron moderator and carbon dioxide as coolant. They have been the backbone of the UK's nuclear power generation fleet since the 1980s. The AGR was developed from the Magnox reactor, the UK's first-generation reactor design. The first Magnox design had been optimised for generating plutonium, and for this reason it had features that were not the most economic for power generation. Primary among these was the requirement to run on natural uranium, which required a coolant with a low neutron cross section, in this case carbon dioxide, and an efficient neutron moderator, graphite. The Magnox design also ran relatively cool gas temperatures compared to other power-producing designs, which resulted in less efficient steam conditions. The AGR design r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnox
Magnox is a type of nuclear power / production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The name comes from the magnesium-aluminium alloy (called magnesium non-oxidising), used to clad the fuel rods inside the reactor. Like most other generation I nuclear reactors, the magnox was designed with the dual purpose of producing electrical power and plutonium-239 for the nascent nuclear weapons programme in Britain. The name refers specifically to the United Kingdom design but is sometimes used generically to refer to any similar reactor. As with other plutonium-producing reactors, conserving neutrons is a key element of the design. In magnox, the neutrons are moderated in large blocks of graphite. The efficiency of graphite as a moderator allows the magnox to run using natural uranium fuel, in contrast with the more common commerc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RBMK
The RBMK (, РБМК; ''reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalnyy'', "high-power channel-type reactor") is a class of graphite moderated reactor, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor, nuclear power reactor designed and built by the Soviet Union. It is somewhat like a boiling water reactor as water boils in the pressure tubes. It is one of two power reactor types to enter serial production in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, the other being the VVER reactor. The name refers to its design where instead of a large steel Reactor pressure vessel, pressure vessel surrounding the entire core, the core is surrounded by a cylindrical annular steel tank inside a concrete vault and each fuel assembly is enclosed in an individual 8 cm (inner) diameter pipe (called a "technological channel"). The channels also contain the coolant, and are surrounded by graphite. The RBMK is an early Generation II reactor and the oldest commercial reactor design still in wide operation. Certain aspects of the or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CANDU Reactor
The CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) is a Canadian pressurized heavy-water reactor design used to generate electric power. The acronym refers to its deuterium oxide (heavy water) moderator and its use of (originally, natural) uranium fuel. CANDU reactors were first developed in the late 1950s and 1960s by a partnership between Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, Canadian General Electric, and other companies. There have been two major types of CANDU reactors, the original design of around 500 MWe that was intended to be used in multi-reactor installations in large plants, and the optimized CANDU 6 in the 600 MWe class that is designed to be used in single stand-alone units or in small multi-unit plants. CANDU 6 units were built in Quebec and New Brunswick, as well as Pakistan, Argentina, South Korea, Romania, and China. A single example of a non-CANDU 6 design was sold to India. The multi-unit design was used onl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economical when uranium supply is low and prices are high. Nuclear reprocessing may extend beyond fuel and include the reprocessing of other nuclear reactor material, such as Zircaloy cladding. The high radioactivity of spent nuclear material means that reprocessing must be highly controlled and carefully executed in advanced facilities by specialized personnel. Numerous processes exist, with the chemical based PUREX process dominating. Alternatives include heating to drive off volatile elements, burning via oxidation, and fluoride vola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fuel
Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other atomic nucleus, nuclear devices to generate energy. Oxide fuel For fission reactors, the fuel (typically based on uranium) is usually based on the metal oxide; the oxides are used rather than the metals themselves because the oxide melting point is much higher than that of the metal and because it cannot burn, being already in the oxidized state. Uranium dioxide Uranium dioxide is a black semiconductor, semiconducting solid. It can be made by heating uranyl nitrate to form . : This is then converted by heating with hydrogen to form UO2. It can be made from Enriched uranium, enriched uranium hexafluoride by reacting with ammonia to form a solid called ammonium diuranate, . This is then heated (Calcination, calcined) to form and U3O8 which is then converted by heating with hydrogen or ammonia to form UO2. The UO2 is mixed with an organic binder and pressed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparging (chemistry)
In chemistry, sparging, also known as gas flushing in metallurgy, is a technique in which a gas is bubbled through a liquid in order to remove ''other'' dissolved gas(es) and/or dissolved volatile liquid(s) from that liquid. It is a method of degassing. According to Henry's law, the concentration of each gas in a liquid is proportional to the partial pressure of that gas (in the gaseous state) in contact with the liquid. Sparging introduces a gas that has little or no partial pressure of the gas(es) to be removed, and increases the area of the gas-liquid interface, which encourages some of the dissolved gas(es) to diffuse into the sparging gas before the sparging gas escapes from the liquid. Many sparging processes, such as solvent removal, use air as the sparging gas. To remove oxygen, or for sensitive solutions or reactive molten metals, a chemically inert gas such as nitrogen, argon, or helium is used. Liquid chromatography Solvents used in high-performance liquid chromatogr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR; often pronounced ''lifter'') is a type of molten salt reactor. LFTRs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride-based molten (liquid) salt for fuel. In a typical design, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an external heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to a nonradioactive secondary salt. The secondary salt then transfers its heat to a steam turbine or closed-cycle gas turbine. Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSRs) supply the nuclear fuel mixed into a molten salt. They should not be confused with designs that use a molten salt for ''cooling'' only (fluoride high-temperature reactors) and still have a solid fuel. Molten salt reactors, as a class, include both burners and breeders in fast or thermal spectra, using fluoride or chloride salt-based fuels and a range of fissile or fertile consumables. LFTRs are defined by the use of fluoride fuel salts and the breeding of thorium into uranium-233 in the thermal neutron sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
