Flibe Energy has teamed with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to examine the use of nitrogen trifluoride as an agent to remove uranium from a molten-salt fuel mixture as a preliminary step for the removal of fission products. They will look at fluorination of Lithium Fluoride-Beryllium Fluoride. The US Department of energy will provide $2,101,982 of funding. There is $525,500 of non-DOE funding.

Flibe Energy has taken the 1960’s Oak Ridge molten salt reactor work and enhanced the design into the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). LFTR is a molten-salt reactor design that can utilize thorium more effectively and efficiently than ever before. Thorium becomes Earth’s most abundant stored energy resource when used in the LFTR.

The salts used in the LFTR are combinations of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride (LiF-BeF2) salts often called “F-Li-Be.” Unlike current materials used in nuclear reactors, liquid FLiBe is impervious to radiation damage and incredibly chemically stable. FLiBe can hold enormous amounts of thermal energy safely and at low pressures yet at high temperatures, helping FliBe Energy finally realize the dream of a compact, affordable power system that can be mass-produced to meet the world’s needs for power and other essential materials…

*Read the full article online at https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/07/funding-for-thorium-molten-salt-and-other-advanced-nuclear-reactors.html

• See 2015 technical report, Program on Technology Innovation: Technology Assessment of a Molten Salt Reactor Design The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)