Dual fluid reactor

The Dual Fluid Reactor (DFR) is a reactor concept of the Canadian company Dual Fluid Energy Inc. combining the advantages of the molten salt reactor with those of the liquid metal cooled reactor, it is supposed to reach the criteria for reactors of the Generation IV International Forum. The fuel can be a molten solution of actinide chloride salts, or it can be pure liquid actinide metal. The cooling is provided by molten lead in a separate loop. As a fast breeder reactor, the DFR can use both natural uranium and thorium to breed fissile material, as well as recycle processed High-level waste and plutonium. Due to the high thermal conductivity of the molten metal, the Dual Fluid Reactor is an inherently safe reactor (the decay heat can be removed passively).

U-238 of a spent nuclear fuel element of a LWR could be completely dissolved in Cl-salt, including the problematic long-living transuranic parts. Complete breeding and fission could power a 300MW electrical Dual Fluid Reactor for about 25 years. The initial fuel would be completely converted into fission products with a relative ingestion (or inhalation) radiotoxicity reduced from a several 100.000 years to a couple of hundred years.[1] This in turn strongly reduces the need for long term storage.

History

The reactor was initially developed by a private German research institute, the Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics in Berlin. In February 2021, the six inventors, along with the existing team, formed the Canadian company Dual Fluid Energy Inc. to bring the design to commercial maturity. In June 2021, the company acquired over $6 million in Canadian seed funding.

To date, one patent has been obtained on the operating principle of the reactor,[2] and another is pending on the liquid metal fuel variant [3] that the company is aiming for the first realization.

The reactor design won the public vote for the Galileo Knowledge Prize in the German GreenTec Awards of 2013, but the award committee presiding over the awards changed the rules to exclude all nuclear designs before announcing the winner. The Dual Fluid participants successfully sued in response to this.[4][5][6][7]

A conceptual predecessor of the Dual Fluid Reactor was the UK 1970s lead-cooled fast spectrum MSR (MSFR), which was undergoing a design path inclusive of the fissile fuel likewise dissolved in a molten chloride salt, with experimental work undertaken over 1968-73. Funding ceased in 1974.[8]

Trivia

The company Dual Fluid Energy Inc. no longer uses the previously used acronym "DFR" because of confusion with the Deounreay Fast Reactor.

References
  1. Rodney C. Ewing (15 October 1999). "Less Geology in the Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste". Science. Vol. 286, no. 5439. pp. 415–417. doi:10.1126/science.286.5439.415. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  2. "Dual Fluid Reactor".
  3. "Dual Fluid Reactor – Variant with Liquid Metal Fissionable Material (DFR/ M)".
  4. "DFR – The Dual Fluid Reactor". The perspective of molten salt reactors. 26 March 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  5. "Der Dual Fluid Reaktor (DFR) ist per Gerichtsbeschluss für die GreenTec Awards nominiert ! – Ruhrkultour" (in German). August 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  6. "Stellungnahme Denominierung — Dual Fluid Reaktor" (in German). 8 August 2013. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  7. Klute, Rainer (20 June 2013). "How To Stash A Nuclear Reactor Away". Rainers Blog. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  8. "Molten Salt Reactors". World Nuclear Association. December 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2019.

Further reading
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