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Kairos and Materion commission molten salt purification plant
[link:https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Kairos-and-Materion-commission-molten-salt-purific|Kairos and Materion commission molten salt purification plantThe plant, designed by Kairos Power and based at the Materion campus in Elmore, Ohio in the USA, will produce high-purity fluoride salt coolant to be used in high-temperature molten salt reactors.
Kairos Power's fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR) is cooled by a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride salts known as Flibe, which is chemically stable and operates at low pressure. The molten salt coolant will be used in Karios's engineering test unit and proposed Hermes demonstration reactor as well as future commercial KP-FHR reactors.
Materion is an industry leader in the production and manufacturing of beryllium-based materials and the decision to locate the Molten Salt Purification Plant (MSPP) at its Elmore facility is said to "reinforce a long-term, strategic commitment by both companies to demonstrate leadership in molten salt production".
Ed Blandford, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Kairos Power, said: "We are thrilled to announce the commissioning of MSPP, a critical milestone to produce Flibe for KP-FHR technology and the cornerstone of our collaboration with Materion Corporation. MSPP represents a major investment in Kairos Power’s vertical integration strategy to achieve cost certainty by establishing commercial Flibe production. We have confidence in our ability to produce Flibe that meets our nuclear specification for Kairos Power’s testing programme at the scale necessary to supply our major hardware demonstrations..."
Kairos Power's fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR) is cooled by a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride salts known as Flibe, which is chemically stable and operates at low pressure. The molten salt coolant will be used in Karios's engineering test unit and proposed Hermes demonstration reactor as well as future commercial KP-FHR reactors.
Materion is an industry leader in the production and manufacturing of beryllium-based materials and the decision to locate the Molten Salt Purification Plant (MSPP) at its Elmore facility is said to "reinforce a long-term, strategic commitment by both companies to demonstrate leadership in molten salt production".
Ed Blandford, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Kairos Power, said: "We are thrilled to announce the commissioning of MSPP, a critical milestone to produce Flibe for KP-FHR technology and the cornerstone of our collaboration with Materion Corporation. MSPP represents a major investment in Kairos Power’s vertical integration strategy to achieve cost certainty by establishing commercial Flibe production. We have confidence in our ability to produce Flibe that meets our nuclear specification for Kairos Power’s testing programme at the scale necessary to supply our major hardware demonstrations..."
The Kairos reactor is Per Peterson's design (UC Berkeley) It's a kind of hybrid reactor, with features of a pebble bed reactor and features of a molten salt reactor with FLIBE coolant.
I'm no longer as enthusiastic as I was about FLIBE, say 10 or 15 years ago, for various reasons, one being it's a thermal spectrum reactor, but even a less than ideal nuclear reactor is better than any dangerous fossil fuel plant and in fact, the so called "renewable energy" junk that entrenches dangerous fossil fuels.