UrFU Collaborates with Rosatom to Advance Nuclear Waste Utilization Technology

The Mining and Chemical Combine, part of Rosatom, is working with UrFU on an innovative research facility – a liquid salt reactor – in which radioactive waste will be incinerated.

In a liquid-salt reactor, nuclear fuel and minor actinides to be incinerated are dissolved in molten salt. The MCC is now selecting materials for the reactor and its systems. The plant’s laboratories have been conducting tests since April.

Specialists from the Mining and Chemical Combine and scientists from the Ural Federal University have designed and manufactured equipment that will allow the experiment to proceed. During the tests, samples of the salt needed to dissolve the waste will be taken and changes in its composition due to corrosion of the samples will be monitored. The laboratory staff also plans to test the method of cleaning the fuel salt when the reactor is operating at full capacity.

“Energy without radioactive waste is the dream of nuclear scientists around the world. Russia is the most advanced in realizing this dream. The research reactor to be built at the Mining and Chemical Combine is an important project from an environmental point of view. It is designed to test technologies for using long-lived, highly radiotoxic isotopes left over after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from thermal reactors. Only a few liquid-salt reactors can neutralize the entire volume of the most dangerous elements of spent nuclear fuel from thermal reactors in our country”, says Vladimir Matselya, Head of the MCC Central Plant Laboratory.

The plant itself will be in operation by the year 2030.