IMSR

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The IMSR design is intended to be used for a variety of heat demand applications, ranging from power generation to cogeneration, or process-heat only. Click on image to enlarge. IMSR heat applications.png
The IMSR design is intended to be used for a variety of heat demand applications, ranging from power generation to cogeneration, or process-heat only. Click on image to enlarge.

The Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) is a design for a small modular reactor (SMR) that employs molten salt reactor technology, based closely on the DMSR design from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it incorporates elements found in the SmAHTR, a later design from the same laboratory. The IMSR is being developed by Terrestrial Energy Inc. (TEI), [1] headquartered in Oakville, Canada. The IMSR belongs to the DMSR class of MSR and hence is a "burner" reactor that employs a liquid fuel rather than a conventional solid fuel; this liquid contains the nuclear fuel and also serves as primary coolant.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a type of nuclear fission reactor which are smaller than conventional reactors, and manufactured at a plant and brought to a site to be assembled. Modular reactors allow for less on-site construction, increased containment efficiency, and heightened nuclear materials security. SMRs have been proposed as a way to bypass financial barriers that have plagued conventional nuclear reactors.

Molten salt reactor class of nuclear fission reactors with molten salt as the primary coolant or the fuel

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 molten salt mixture. MSRs offer multiple advantages over conventional nuclear power plants, although for historical reasons, they have not been deployed.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory research facility in Tennessee, USA

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is an American multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) under a contract with the DOE. ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system by size and by annual budget. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville. ORNL's scientific programs focus on materials, neutron science, energy, high-performance computing, systems biology and national security.

Contents

Design

IMSR Core-unit, primary containment and silo. This cut-away view shows the internals of the IMSR Core-unit, the containment and the surrounding structural silo. The Core-unit is a sealed reactor vessel that contains the graphite moderator (shown in white), primary fuel salt, and primary heat exchangers and pumps (shown in blue). It forms the heart of the IMSR system. In the Core-unit, the fuel salt is circulated between the graphite core and heat exchangers. The Core-unit itself is placed inside a surrounding vessel called the guard vessel. The entire Core-unit module can be lifted out for replacement. The guard vessel that surrounds the Core-unit acts as a containment vessel. In turn, a shielded silo surrounds the guard vessel. Click on image to enlarge. IMSR Core-unit and containment.png
IMSR Core-unit, primary containment and silo. This cut-away view shows the internals of the IMSR Core-unit, the containment and the surrounding structural silo. The Core-unit is a sealed reactor vessel that contains the graphite moderator (shown in white), primary fuel salt, and primary heat exchangers and pumps (shown in blue). It forms the heart of the IMSR system. In the Core-unit, the fuel salt is circulated between the graphite core and heat exchangers. The Core-unit itself is placed inside a surrounding vessel called the guard vessel. The entire Core-unit module can be lifted out for replacement. The guard vessel that surrounds the Core-unit acts as a containment vessel. In turn, a shielded silo surrounds the guard vessel. Click on image to enlarge.

The IMSR "integrates" into a compact, sealed and replaceable nuclear reactor unit (the IMSR Core-unit) all the primary components of the nuclear reactor that operate on the liquid molten fluoride salt fuel: moderator, primary heat exchangers, pumps and shutdown rods. [2]

Nuclear reactor device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction

A nuclear reactor, formerly known as an atomic pile, is a device used to initiate and control a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in propulsion of ships. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid, which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for medical and industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. Some are run only for research. As of early 2019, the IAEA reports there are 454 nuclear power reactors and 226 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world.

The IMSR belongs to the DMSR [3] class of MSR. It therefore employs a uranium dominant fuel with a simple converter (also known as a "burner") fuel cycle objective. This is unlike the majority of molten salt reactor designs that employ thorium, which requires the more complex breeder objective. The design uses standard assaylow-enriched uranium fuel, with less than 5% U235 as do most operating power reactors today (many other Generation IV reactor designs require high levels of enrichment). The IMSR fuel is uranium tetrafluoride [ citation needed ] (UF4) which is readily available today. This fuel is blended with carrier salts, which are also fluorides, such as lithium fluoride (LiF), sodium fluoride (NaF) and/or beryllium fluoride (BeF2). These carrier salts increase the heat capacity of the fuel (coolant) and lower the fuel's melting point.

Uranium Chemical element with atomic number 92

Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable, with half-lives varying between 159,200 years and 4.5 billion years. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 and uranium-235. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.

Nuclear fuel cycle Process of manufacturing and consuming nuclear fuel

The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end, which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in the back end, which are necessary to safely manage, contain, and either reprocess or dispose of spent nuclear fuel. If spent fuel is not reprocessed, the fuel cycle is referred to as an open fuel cycle ; if the spent fuel is reprocessed, it is referred to as a closed fuel cycle.

Thorium Chemical element with atomic number 90

Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately hard, malleable, and has a high melting point. Thorium is an electropositive actinide whose chemistry is dominated by the +4 oxidation state; it is quite reactive and can ignite in air when finely divided.

This liquid fuel-coolant mixture is pumped through a nuclear reactor core that is moderated by graphite elements, making this a thermal neutron reactor. After heating up in the core, pumps force the liquid fuel through heat exchangers positioned inside the reactor vessel. All the primary components, heat exchangers etc. are positioned inside the reactor vessel. The reactor’s integrated architecture avoids the use of external piping for the fuel that could leak or break.

Graphite allotrope of carbon, mineral, substance

Graphite, archaically referred to as plumbago, is a crystalline form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a hexagonal structure. It occurs naturally in this form and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Under high pressures and temperatures it converts to diamond. Graphite is used in pencils and lubricants. Its high conductivity makes it useful in electronic products such as electrodes, batteries, and solar panels.

A thermal-neutron reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses slow or thermal neutrons.

The piping external to the reactor vessel contain two additional salt loops in series: a secondary, nonradioactive coolant salt, followed by another (third) coolant salt. These salt loops act as additional barriers to any radionuclides and improve the system's heat capacity. It also allows easier integration with the heat sink end of the plant; either process heat or power applications using standard industrial grade steam turbine plants are envisioned by Terrestrial Energy. [4]

Steam turbine type of turbine device which uses steam from a boiler to rotate the turbine blades

A steam turbine is a device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884.

The IMSR Core-unit is designed to be completely replaced after a 7-year period of operation. This ensures that a sufficient operational lifetime of materials used in the IMSR reactor core can be achieved. During operation, small fresh fuel/salt batches are periodically added to the reactor system. This online refueling process does not require the mechanical refueling machinery required for solid fuel reactor systems.

Many of these design features are based on two previous molten salt designs from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) – the ORNL denatured molten salt reactor (DMSR) from 1980 and the solid fuel/liquid salt cooled, small modular advanced high temperature reactor (SmAHTR), a 2010 design. The DMSR, as carried into the IMSR design, proposed to use molten salt fuel and graphite moderator in a simplified converter design using LEU , with periodic additions of LEU fuel. Most previous proposals for molten salt reactors all bred more fuel than needed to operate, so were called breeders. Converter or "burner" reactors like the IMSR and DMSR can also utilize plutonium from existing spent fuel as their makeup fuel source. The more recent SmAHTR proposal was for a small, modular, molten salt cooled but solid TRISO fuelled reactor. [5]

Terrestrial Energy

The IMSR facility in cutaway bird's view. New modules are brought in by road (left) and are then lifted into the reactor cavity (middle right) by gantry crane. Also shown are secondary heat exchangers and manifolds that send heated molten salt to the power generating part of the plant (right, power generating building not shown). Click on image to enlarge. IMSR reactor building layout.png
The IMSR facility in cutaway bird's view. New modules are brought in by road (left) and are then lifted into the reactor cavity (middle right) by gantry crane. Also shown are secondary heat exchangers and manifolds that send heated molten salt to the power generating part of the plant (right, power generating building not shown). Click on image to enlarge.

Terrestrial Energy was founded in Canada in 2013 with the objective of commercialising the IMSR. Terrestrial Energy is currently working to license (in both Canada and the USA) an IMSR design with a thermal power capacity of 400 MW (equivalent to 190MW electrical). [6] As standard industrial grade steam turbines are proposed, cogeneration, or combined heat and power, is also possible.

In 2016, Terrestrial Energy engaged in a pre-licensing design review with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. [7] [8] It successfully completed the first stage of this process in late 2017. [9] Terrestrial Energy claims it will have its first commercial IMSRs licensed and operating in the 2020s.

Terrestrial Energy had previously proposed designs in 3 other sizes, generating 80 MW, 300 MW and 600 MW thermal power, and 33, 141, and 291 MW of electricity respectively, using standard industrial grade steam turbines. However it has not sought to take these alternate designs through the licensing process.

Replaceable Core-unit

The design uses a replaceable Core-unit. [10] When the graphite moderator's lifetime exposure to neutron flux causes it to start distorting beyond acceptable limits, rather than remove and replace the graphite moderator, the entire IMSR Core-unit is replaced as a unit. This includes the pumps, pump motors, shutdown rods, heat exchangers and graphite moderator, all of which are either inside the vessel or directly attached to it. To facilitate a replacement, the design employs two reactor silos in the reactor building, one operating and one idle or with a previous, empty, spent Core-unit in cool-down. After 7 years of operation, the core-unit is shut down and cools in place to allow short lived radionuclides to decay. After that cool-down period, the spent core-unit is lifted out and eventually replaced.

Simultaneously, a new Core-unit is installed and activated in the second silo. This entails connection to the secondary (coolant) salt piping, placement of the containment head and biological shield and loading with fresh fuel salt. The containment head provides double containment (the first being the sealed reactor vessel itself). The new Core-unit can now start its 7 years of power operations.

The IMSR vendor accumulates sealed, spent IMSR Core-units and spent fuel salt tanks in onsite, below grade silos. This operational mode reduces uncertainties with respect to long service life of materials and equipment, replacing them by design rather than allowing age-related issues such as creep or corrosion to accumulate.

Online refueling

The IMSR employs online fueling. While operating, small fresh fuel salt batches are periodically added to the reactor system. As the reactor uses circulating liquid fuel this process does not require complex mechanical refueling machinery. The reactor vessel is never opened, thereby ensuring a clean operating environment. During the 7 years, no fuel is removed from the reactor; this differs from solid fuel reactors which must remove fuel to make room for any new fuel assemblies, limiting fuel utilization.

Safety

Nuclear power reactors have three fundamental safety requirements:

Control

Nuclear reactors require control over the critical nuclear chain reaction. As such, the design must provide for exact control over the reaction rate of the core, and must enable reliable shut-down when needed. Under routine operations, the IMSR relies on intrinsic stability for reactivity control; there are no control rods. This behavior is known as negative power feedback - the reactor is self-stabilizing in power output and temperature, and is characterized as a load-following reactor. Reactor power is controlled by the amount of heat removed from the reactor: increased heat removal results in a drop in fuel salt temperature, resulting in increased reactivity and in turn increased power. Conversely, reducing heat removal will increase reactor temperature at first, lowering reactivity and subsequently reducing reactor power. If all heat removal is lost, the reactor power will drop to a very low power level.

As backup (and shutdown method for maintenance), the IMSR employs shutdown rods filled with neutron absorber. As with other molten salt reactors, the reactor can also be shut down by draining the fuel salt from the Core-unit into storage tanks.

Cooling

The IMSR uses a passive, always-on backup cooling system for the reactor. A cooling path is provided between the outside of the guard vessel that surrounds the Core-unit. Any heatup of the Core-unit will increase heat transfer to the guard vessel, in turn increasing heat loss to the natural circulation gas. The heated gas is cooled by the reactor building metal roof, and is returned to the guard vessel to be heated again. Click on image to enlarge. IRVACS.png
The IMSR uses a passive, always-on backup cooling system for the reactor. A cooling path is provided between the outside of the guard vessel that surrounds the Core-unit. Any heatup of the Core-unit will increase heat transfer to the guard vessel, in turn increasing heat loss to the natural circulation gas. The heated gas is cooled by the reactor building metal roof, and is returned to the guard vessel to be heated again. Click on image to enlarge.

A nuclear reactor is a thermal power system — it generates heat, transports it and eventually converts it to motion in a heat engine, in this case a steam turbine. Such systems require that the heat is removed, transported and converted at the same rate it is generated.

A fundamental issue for nuclear reactors is that even when the nuclear fission process is halted, heat continues to be generated at significant levels by the radioactive decay of the fission products for days and even months. This is known as decay heat and is the major safety driver behind the cooling of nuclear reactors, because this decay heat must be removed. For conventional light water reactors, in all foreseeable circumstances, the flow of cooling water must continue; otherwise damage and melting of the (solid) fuel can result. Light water reactors operate with a volatile coolant, requiring high pressure operation and depressurization in an emergency.

The IMSR instead uses liquid fuel at low pressure. IMSR does not rely on bringing coolant to the reactor or depressurizing the reactor. IMSR cooling is passive. Heat continuously dissipates from the Core-unit. During normal operation, heat loss is reduced by the moderate temperature of the reactor vessel in normal operation, combined with the stagnant air between the Core-unit and guard vessel, which only allows radiant heat transfer. Radiant heat transfer is a strong function of temperature; any increase in the temperature of the Core-unit will rapidly increase heat loss. Upon shutdown of the primary salt pumps, the reactor passively drops power to a very small level. It can still heat up slowly by the small but constant decay heat as previously described. Due to the large heat capacity of the graphite and the salts, this heatup is slow. The slow heatup slowly increases thermal radiant heat loss, and subsequent heat loss from the guard vessel itself to the outside air. Low pressure nitrogen flows by natural convection over the outside of the guard vessel, transporting heat to the metal reactor building roof. This roof provides the passive heat loss required, acting as a giant radiator to the outside air. [11] As a result, heat loss is increased while decay heat naturally drops; an equilibrium is reached where temperatures peak and then drop. The thermal dynamics and inertia of the entire system of the Core-unit in its containment silo is sufficient to absorb and disperse decay heat. In the long term, as decay heat dissipates almost completely, and the plant is still not recovered, the reactor would increase power to the level of the heat loss to IRVACS, and stay at that low power level (and normal temperature) indefinitely.

The molten salts are excellent heat transfer fluids, [12] with volumetric heat capacities close to water, and good thermal conductivity.

Containment

All molten salt reactors have features that contribute to containment safety. These mostly have to do with the properties of the salt itself. The salts are chemically inert. They do not burn and are not combustible. The salts have low volatility (high boiling point around 1400 °C), allowing a low operating pressure of the core and cooling loops. This provides a large margin above the normal operating temperature of some 600 to 700 °C. This makes it possible to operate at low pressures without risk of coolant/fuel boiling.

The high chemical stability of the salt precludes energetic chemical reactions such as hydrogen gas generation/detonation and sodium combustion, that can challenge the design and operations of other reactor types. The fluoride salt reacts with many fission products to produce chemically stable, non-volatile fluorides, such as cesium fluoride. Similarly, the majority of other high risk fission products such as iodine, dissolve into the fuel salt, bound up as iodide salts. However, for the MSRE "of the order of one-fourth to one-third of the iodine has not been adequately accounted for.". [13] There is some uncertainty as to whether this is a measurement error, as the concentrations are small and other fission products also had similar accounting problems. See liquid fluoride thorium reactor and molten salt reactor for more information.

The IMSR also has multiple physical containment barriers. It uses a sealed, integral reactor unit, the Core-unit. The Core-unit is surrounded by the guard vessel on its side and bottom, itself surrounded by a gas-tight structural steel and concrete silo. The Core-unit is covered up from the top by a steel containment head which is itself covered by thick round steel and concrete plates. The plates serve as radiation shield and provide protection against external hazards such as explosions or aircraft crash penetration. The reactor building provides an additional layer of protection against such external hazards, as well as a controlled, filtered-air confinement area.

Most molten salt reactors use a gravity drain tank as an emergency storage reservoir for the molten fuel salt. The IMSR deliberately avoids this drain tank. The IMSR design is simpler and eliminates the drain line and accompanying risks from low level vessel penetrations. The result is a more compact, robust design with fewer parts and few failure scenarios.

Economics

The economics of nuclear reactors are dominated by the capital cost—the cost to build and finance the construction of the facility. Fuel and operating cost are relatively low.

Due to the dominance of capital cost, most nuclear power reactors have sought to reduce cost per Watt by increasing the total power output of the reactor system. However, this often leads to very large projects that are difficult to finance, manage and to standardize.

Terrestrial Energy is arguing for a different approach: to produce a more compact, more efficient reactor system.

Safety Approach

A large part of the cost of nuclear power reactors is related to safety and the resulting quality and regulatory requirements that can drive costs up. The IMSR approach is to rely on inherent and passive safety features rather than complex active systems, potentially reducing costs in this important area, while increasing the safety profile.

For control, inherent reactor power control by reactivity feedback, rather than a reactor control system with actively positioning control rods is used.

For cooling, the always-on, passive cooling system based on heat loss, enabling safety-grade decay heat removal. Unlike conventional reactors the IMSR decay cooling mechanism does not require backup electric power.

For containment, the salt properties provide a key difference with water-cooled reactors. The salts have low vapor pressures and high boiling points, and are chemically stable. High pressures and hydrogen threats are thereby eliminated from the containment design, reducing the required containment volume, design pressure, and attendant costs. The high cesium retention of the salt reduces the available source term in an accident, further reducing the fundamental risk profile.

Efficiency

The most important efficiency factor affecting the economics of a nuclear power plant generating electricity is the thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency. This is because the amount of revenue generated from a nuclear powerplant with a given thermal reactor power is proportional to the efficiency of the power conversion; that is, how much heat is actually converted to electricity to feed into the grid. Pressurized and boiling water reactors feature relatively low efficiency, around 32-34% typically. The higher salt temperature of the IMSR provides hotter, superheated steam generation that results in an efficiency in the 45-48% range. [2]

Traditional reactors operate at a lower temperature and as such need specialised steam turbines for making electricity. The higher temperature of the IMSR means lower cost turbine systems, already in common use with coal fired power stations, can be used. This helps to further lower the capital cost.

"Data" (PDF). aris.iaea.org.  Due to this, the IMSR produces around 1.4 times more electricity per unit reactor output, resulting in a 40% increase in electricity generation (and revenues).

The nuclear efficiency is less important to economics, as fuel costs in a nuclear facility are low; typically around 0.15 to 0.3 cent per kWh depending on uranium prices. In addition to the uranium fuel itself, use of enrichment also adds to the cost of the fuel cycle. The IMSR's nuclear efficiency is comparable to a light water reactor, with a lower fuel burnup but also lower average enrichment requirement. [2]

Modularity

A key cost driver is in the nature of the equipment used. Standardized, manufactured components are lower cost than specialized, or even custom components. The compact Core-unit forms the basic modularity of the IMSR system. Core-units are identical and small enough to be fabricated in a controlled in-door environment.

Reactor Pressure

High pressure is a cost driver for any component, as it increases both quality requirements and required materials (thickness). Large, high pressure components require heavy weldings and forgings that have limited availability. A typical operating pressure for a PWR is over 150 atmospheres. Due to the low vapor pressure and high boiling point of the salt, the Core-unit operates at or near atmospheric pressure (other than a few atmospheres of pressure from the hydrostatic weight of the salt), despite the higher operating temperature. This results in lighter, thinner components that are easier to manufacture and modularize.

Other Markets

Various non-electric applications exist that have a large market demand for energy: steam reforming, paper and pulp production, chemicals and plastics, etc. Light water reactors are less suitable to most of these markets due to the low operating temperature of around 300 °C, and the large size of the reactors. The IMSR's smaller size and higher operating temperature (around 700 °C) could potentially open up new markets in these process heat applications. In addition, cogeneration, the production of both heat and electricity, are also potentially attractive.

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Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

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Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment

The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was an experimental molten salt reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researching this technology through the 1960s; constructed by 1964, it went critical in 1965 and was operated until 1969.

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Stable salt reactor

The stable salt reactor (SSR) is a nuclear reactor design proposed by Moltex Energy Ltd based in the United Kingdom and Canada.

References

Further reading