More than 4,700 pounds of salt once used to cool a U.S. experimental reactor has arrived at a Texas project that plans to use it in liquid fuel. The shipment gives Natura Resources and Abilene Christian University a specialized input for their planned MSR-1 research reactor, but the reactor has not begun operating.
The material, called FLiBe, is a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. It came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, which stopped operating in 1969. Oak Ridge stored the salt and moved it from the experiment's coolant tank into large canisters in 1999. The U.S. Department of Energy says four of those canisters and two smaller ones reached the project on September 18.
Its role would change in the new reactor. At Oak Ridge, the FLiBe carried heat as a coolant. Abilene Christian University says its team plans to mix the delivered salt with uranium fluoride to make MSR-1's fuel salt, in which nuclear fuel circulates as a liquid. The university says the salt contains 99.99% lithium-7, an isotope chosen to reduce tritium production.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit for the research reactor in 2024. That permit does not authorize operation; the university must apply separately for an operating license.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Energy: FLiBe shipment and Oak Ridge storage history
- Abilene Christian University: delivery, proposed fuel use and lithium-7 content
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission: construction permit and separate operating-license requirement
- Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory photograph published by the U.S. Department of Energy; DOE public-domain media policy.